Confessions of a Duchess

“Yes, my lord,” Dexter said.

“I’ll give you two months,” Lord Liverpool said. “Want the matter tied up by Christmas, Anstruther. That should give you plenty of time. If you’re lucky you might even fit in some fishing, as well. Catch the murdering miscreant fair and square, see that he implicates Sampson, as well, and if you also come back with a wealthy wife you will have done a good job.”

“Yes, my lord,” Dexter said, heart sinking. There was no reasoning with Lord Liverpool when he was in this sort of mood. And truth to tell, Dexter knew that he should not be arguing the case anyway. Lord Liverpool was right—he desperately needed a rich wife and ever since Monty Fortune had made his announcement in Brooks’s Club that night he had been thinking of going to Yorkshire to find one.

The problem, Dexter reflected, as he cast his line again, was that he was a reluctant suitor. Hence the fact that he was fishing today rather than paying court to any of the ladies gathered in the winter gardens and the pump rooms. Blatant fortune hunting offended his sense of honor. But, as Miles Vickery had helpfully pointed out to him, honor could be an expensive commodity and one that, in this context, Dexter really could not afford.

Dexter’s father had died five years before, having gambled away a fortune that he did not have. The Honorable James Anstruther had staggered out of his club on his way to a low tavern to drown his sorrows, and had finished the whole sorry business of his life by stumbling, blind drunk, in front of a carriage and leaving his eldest son with a pile of debts and six siblings to take care of. By great good fortune he had staved off his ruin until Dexter had completed his studies at Oxford, which at least ensured he could get a job in the government, but it was not well paid and the widowed Mrs. Anstruther and his younger brothers and sisters were ruinously extravagant and expensive.

Some people are blessed with one irresponsible parent; Dexter had two. In that respect The Honorable Mr. Anstruther and his wife were extremely well suited, with their gambling, their affairs and their general decadence. Dexter, the eldest child and the only one of the seven members of the “Anstruther Collection” who could definitely be assumed to be his father’s son, had watched his parents lurch from financial crisis to emotional disaster for as long as he could remember. From the age of twelve he had determined that his life was going to be the opposite of his father’s: rational, controlled and with no dangerous emotions to cloud his judgment. He would marry responsibly to a woman who would be faithful to him and his children would know exactly who their parents were. He would never tolerate for his offspring the kind of stigma and ignominy that had attached to him and his siblings: the covert smiles, the knowing looks, the veiled references to his parents’ disastrous affairs and their own illegitimacy.

Such a rational approach to life had stood him in good stead until the age of twenty-two, when he had succumbed to one spectacular, exhilarating episode of sexual abandon, during which he had lost his heart as well as his virginity and fallen hopelessly in love. The incident had been a disaster, reinforcing in the end all his beliefs about the need for a calm and controlled life. In his youth and inexperience he had miscalculated badly and thought his feelings were returned. Disillusioned and angry when he had discovered they were not, he had sought solace in liaisons with courtesans that he could ill afford until Lord Liverpool had called him gruffly to account.

There was no sound but for the call of a moorhen by the riverbank and the splash of a fish farther upstream. The day was extremely peaceful. Dexter cast his line again, thinking of the calm and rational future marriage he had planned.

“Try not to make as big a hash of this case as you did that Glory business, Anstruther,” Liverpool had said caustically as he bade Dexter farewell. “That whole affair was an utter disaster.”

Dexter shifted slightly now as he reflected on the conversation. The “Glory business” Lord Liverpool had referred to had indeed been an unfortunate case. Four years previously, Dexter and his colleague Nick Falconer had failed to capture the highway woman Glory, a popular heroine who was the darling of the Yorkshire Dales. Glory had fought for justice in her own inimitable style,righting wrongs, settling scores, taking from the rich to give to the poor in true Robin Hood style. Even now, Dexter could not quite think of Glory as anything other than a heroine, a piece of sentimentality that irritated him profoundly when he should not have been thinking about her at all.

The bobbin on the end of his fishing line dipped, indicating that a fish had taken the bait. Dexter started to reel it in.

He heard a splash followed by an expletive and then an oar drifted lazily past him, tangling briefly with the fishing line and dislodging his catch. Dexter swore, too, and again as a second oar came sailing past, knocking his fishing rod off the bank. He made a grab for it and reeled it in just as Laura, Dowager Duchess of Cole, floated past in a rowing boat.

Dexter straightened up and watched curiously.

The rowing boat was spinning slowly in the current, heading toward the fish weir. He could see Laura sitting bolt upright, clutching the sides of the boat. She seemed stunned. Dexter doubted that she could swim. Most women could not, for it was not something that they were taught. And she was perfectly right to be worried, of course. He calculated quite coolly that in a minute, two at the most, the boat would tumble over the weir and Laura would fall into the water and might well drown. She might hit her head as she fell, or her long skirts might become entangled and pull her underwater, or any number of fatal things might happen to her.

Which, arguably, was what Laura Cole deserved for giving him such a perfect night of love four years before and then shattering his heart immediately afterward,showing herself to be no more than a cold, calculating, selfish and hypocritical creature into the bargain.

Not that he was bitter.

He did not care. Laura Cole could drown, for all he cared.

Hell and the devil.

Laura Cole would drown in approximately one minute and he was standing here watching it happen.

Dexter threw down the fishing rod and wrenched off his jacket. There was no time to stop to remove his boots. He strode into the river—it was shallow at the edge but deep in the middle—just as the boat reached the top of the weir and stopped with a rather sickening crunch as the wooden frame caught on the stones at the top.

“Jump!” he shouted.

Laura turned toward him. Her face was a pale blur. She was gripping the edge of the boat so tightly that Dexter could see her knuckles white against the dark wood. She did not move.

The water was up to his chest now and the current was frighteningly strong, threatening to pull him over the top of the weir. The mossy stone of the riverbed slid beneath his feet, treacherously uneven, as he struggled to stay upright.

Dexter made a grab for the boat but in that second the keel slid with a grating roar across the stones at the top of the weir, tipped up at a steep angle and decanted Laura into the river. She disappeared over the top of the weir in a cacophony of water, her bonnet tumbling off and one of her shoes flying through the air in a perfect arc before landing with a plop in the water beside Dexter’s head. Muttering a curse, Dexter gave in and allowed the current to take him over the weir and into the deep green pool at the bottom. Even as he did it he wondered what on earth possessed him to take such a dangerous risk. He felt as though all the air had been pummeled from his body in the fall. There was the sound of rushing water in his ears, cold water that chilled him bone-deep. It filled his lungs, smothering him. He stumbled upright, shaking the water from his eyes, searching desperately for Laura.

Then he saw her.

She was struggling like a madwoman against the heavy, dragging weight of her skirts, which threatened to pull her under. He grabbed hold of her and held her hard against him, protecting her from the tow of the current. His hand was firm in the hollow of her back, their lower bodies pressed intimately together. The water splashed cold around them, but where their bodies touched and clung together he could, suddenly and surprisingly, feel the heat in her. Her breasts were resting against his chest and through his soaking shirt and her drenched clothes he could feel her nipples tight and hard, pressing against him. Despite the cold water and the extreme discomfort of their situation, he felt his body start to stir as he remembered that other occasion on which she had been clasped close in his arms, naked, warm and enticing.

Dexter had not anticipated this happening to him when—if—he ever met Laura Cole again. Certainly it was not his usual response to a soaking-wet female. But now the memories of his night with Laura swelled like a dam that was about to burst and in combination with her wet and seminaked state made his erection swell in proportion. He felt simultaneously hugely aroused and furiously angry with himself for that instant and very inappropriate arousal. He tried to think of icy winds and how chilly the water was, but his body felt like a furnace. He could not control it. And the more he tried to exert self-control the more excited his errant body seemed to become, as though it were asserting its independence and its right to find Laura attractive if it chose. Dex was enraged.

Laura could evidently feel his response, as well. She raised a hand and dashed the wet strands of honey-brown hair back from her face. Her hazel eyes snapped with anger and discomposure. A hint of color touched her cheekbones. She looked as though she was as uncomfortable with his proximity as he was with hers. It was the reaction of the perfect, respectable duchess that he had always imagined her to be. And indeed she had been utterly perfect in his bed and nowhere near as virtuous as she pretended to be out of it…

“Mr. Anstruther! What are you doing?” Laura hit exactly the right note for an outraged dowager duchess and Dexter admired the apparent ease with which she could assume the role. No one hearing her now would ever guess that she had taken him into her bed and made mad, ecstatic, explosive love to him for an entire afternoon, evening and night. It might be something that, with hindsight, he deplored ever happening, but it seemed he could not forget it.

“I am saving you from drowning, your grace,” Dexter said politely. “However, if you object I can let you go.” He suited actions to words by loosening his grip on her.

Laura gave a muffled squeak and clung to him all the more tightly, her fingers digging into the muscles of his upper arms. Dexter was immediately reminded of the sensation of her fingernails scoring his back as she had moved in sensual abandonment beneath him. He tried to ignore the thought and erase the memory—and failed dismally. His body hardened still further until he felt as though he might burst—or throw her down on the riverbank and make love to her. He struggled for some rationality but his body still felt as though it was under independent ownership, hot, tight and desperate for satisfaction. He almost groaned aloud. It was a long time since he had had a woman—since his fall from grace and subsequent recovery he had avoided casual affaires—and none of the women he had known had ever affected him in the stunningly physical way that Laura did. That had been part of the problem. The awareness between them was unwanted, it was infuriating, but it was undeniable.

“Mr. Anstruther, do you always find situations such as this so arousing?” Laura’s tone was frigid enough to turn the most ardent man limp.

“Always,” Dexter said grimly. He bent, slid an arm beneath her knees and swept her off her feet and up into his arms. Judging by the startled look on Laura’s face, he guessed that no one had ever done that to her before. Perhaps it was not surprising for she was a tall woman. He stood at over six feet and she was a bare few inches shorter than him. Many men, he was aware, would find that intimidating.

Buffeted by the current, he strode toward the bank and deposited her gently on the ground. She was still wearing one shoe, the match for the one that had floated off down the river. He noticed that her other foot, in its soaked silk stocking, was large for a woman, but nevertheless delicately shaped with an elegantly high instep. For some reason Dexter found the fact that Laura had big feet to be rather endearing. He wished now that the contrast between her size and her apparent fragility did not appeal to him so much. He did not like her and he did not want to be attracted to her any more but reason, the mainspring of his life, seemed to desert him when Laura was around. It was most inconvenient and quite inexplicable.

“Thank you for your assistance.” Laura’s tone was still arctic. “You may leave me now.”

Dexter had had every intention of doing precisely that, but her dismissal grated on him. He stood watching as she wrung the water from her skirts. It was a fairly pointless exercise. Her entire gown was soaking, damp, he was quick to appreciate, in ways that went far beyond the practice followed by fashionable whores. The drenched muslin clung to every one of her curves—and those who declared Laura Cole to have no figure were clearly mistaken for she had the most entrancingly small, rounded, tip-tilted breasts and a deliciously arched line to her hips.

But Dexter knew that already.

He had seen those curves.

He had traced every last one of them with his hands and his lips and his tongue. He had worshipped her with his body…

Suddenly the mild autumn day seemed sweltering. Dexter’s brain ceased to function at any coherent level as his mind finally gave up the resistance and was swamped with erotic images of Laura lying naked on her tumbled bed at Cole Court whilst he followed every lush, tempting line of her body with his lips. The memories seemed indelibly imprinted on his mind. No attempt at erasure ever seemed to work, no matter how he had tried, or how he had pretended to forget her.

He had wondered what would happen if and when he met Laura Cole again. It was a natural enough matter to speculate about. In the encounters he had envisaged, he had variously been civil, cold, contemptuous and indifferent. In none of them had his throat dried with lust and his eyes been riveted to her slender figure as she stood dripping wet and unbearably seductive before him. Another hot wave of desire surged through him even as he shivered as the breeze flattened his wet trousers against his thighs. There was no concealing his enormous erection now.

And Laura had stopped wringing out her skirts, the material falling from her hands as she straightened up, and was looking at him with a mixture of shock and outrage.

“Mr. Anstruther, a gentleman does not stare at a lady in that frank and boorish manner. Nor does he demonstrate such a strong reaction…” She stopped, making a vague flapping gesture with her hands toward his groin.

Dexter could have put her right on that. No matter how much he fought it, no matter how much he wished to suppress his desires, he was obliged to admit that any man with a pulse would be staring when a figure straight from his most heated fantasies was standing before him. That same man would, as Laura herself had put it, develop a strong and well-nigh irresistible reaction to what he saw. From the confrontational tilt of her chin, however, he suspected that Laura would not take kindly to being corrected. She had started to shiver and looked both upset and defiant. Whilst he had no time for her false protestations of respectability—not with the things that he knew about her—he could see that this might not be the moment to discuss the matter.

With one stride Dexter had reached her side and swung her up in his arms again. She went absolutely rigid as soon as he touched her.

“Where are you staying?” he inquired.

“I live at The Old Palace,” Laura said, “but there is absolutely no need for you to carry me home in this fashion. Unhand me at once, Mr. Anstruther. I insist!” She was at her most peremptory. Most people, Dexter was aware, would obey such a command from a dowager duchess. He ignored it and did not even break his stride as he marched purposefully across the water meadow toward the gate that led to The Old Palace.

Laura’s hair was starting to dry now in honey-brown wisps about her face. She had had it cut since Dexter had first known her and the cluster of curls in the nape of her neck was extremely becoming. One of them brushed his cheek like a feather across his bare skin. Dexter felt the shiver down to his toes. It was so light a touch to have so profound an effect on him. But it seemed impossible not to be aware of every last inch of her. She smelled of fresh air and roses; the scent was in her hair and on her skin and it made him want to bury his face in the curve of her neck and to taste her. He wondered if she would taste the same as he remembered. He wondered if she would kiss the way he remembered. He imagined not. These days he was inclined to believe—or to hope for the sake of his peace of mind—that in his youthful infatuation he had imagined her to be so much more perfect than she really was. The dazzling, physical compatibility that he had thought existed between them would prove to be a product of his inexperience. A kiss was just a kiss. She would not be special and he would not lose his head over her again.

But he would give a lot to know…

As though sensing his feelings, Laura tried to hold herself away from him and put some distance between their bodies.

“Do not be alarmed,” Dexter said. “You are perfectly safe. All I mean to do is convey you home. I have no intention of ravishing you. I do not even like you.”

Laura arched her brows. “Indeed? Parts of you seem to like me well enough, Mr. Anstruther.”

“True,” Dexter said. “They always did. But then not all of me is as discerning as my mind.”

Laura gave a snort of disgust. “Then spare yourself further bodily inconvenience and permit me to walk home unaided. I do not need your help. Indeed, I had no notion that you were even visiting Fortune’s Folly.”

“Nor I you.”

“A pity,” Laura said acidly. “If only we had known we could each have chosen a different destination and spared ourselves the unpleasantness of having to meet.”

Dexter ignored her comments again, kicking open the paddock gate with one booted foot and striding across the field toward the house. A little social discomfort was the least she owed him. Anger and contempt licked through his blood again. Laura had thrown him out of the house the very morning after their passionate night together. He had begged her to run away with him and she had told him he was no more than a stupid youth. She had laughed at his suggestion, taking all that new and untried love for her that he had only just discovered and making it seem tawdry. Her words were etched in his memory:

“Did you imagine that this meant more to me than a brief and pleasant interlude? What a great deal you have to learn, Mr. Anstruther. It was but sport.…”

He had been ridiculously naive, and she an experienced woman to whom he was, no doubt, just one in a long line of liaisons and infidelities. He knew that was how many of the bored wives of the Ton passed their time, going from husband to lover as the fancy took them. But at the time he had thought Laura different and the whole business had left him feeling stupid and betrayed, and vowing never again to allow his physical passions to cloud his emotions and swamp his good judgment. He had thought himself a man of firm principles until he had met Laura Cole but now he thought bitterly that in her company his strength of character lasted just as long as it took him to take his clothes off.

Cynically, he supposed that he should actually be grateful to her. If she had not shown her true colors, if she had not discarded him with careless disdain but had taken him at his word and run away with him, he would have made an almighty mess of his life and one from which he might never have recovered his rational, calm and logical course. No indeed, he should thank Laura for turning him down so brutally and making him see that passion had no place in his life.

Laura shifted in his arms and sighed again. Dexter almost sighed himself. His body was still clamoring for satisfaction even as his mind despised her. It was a small revenge to make her so uncomfortable through his proximity and not a particularly sensible idea, but he felt she deserved it.

“You know, you really should not go out alone in a boat if you cannot swim,” he observed softly into the tumble of curls that tickled his chin.

“I can swim.” Laura wriggled crossly, which did nothing for Dexter’s concentration and a great deal for his bodily torment.

“I was brought up around here and swam in the river from the age of three,” she said. “Unfortunately I do not have an extensive wardrobe and prefer not to swim in a muslin gown.”

“How like a woman,” Dexter said. “Given a choice between jumping in the water and ruining her gown or escaping drowning, she prefers not to jump.”

Laura clenched her lower lip between her teeth. Dexter felt his body jolt. He had fantasized often enough about feeling that mouth against his own again.

“I had forgotten that you are an expert on women these days, Mr. Anstruther,” Laura said. “How fortuitous that your experience gained in bawdy houses and brothels across London has given you such an insight into the female mind. You have changed.”

“I have.” Anger flickered within Dexter again. He tried to quench it. Anger was not a proper response to this situation. It was dangerous and threatened his control in much the same way that his lust did. Laura could try to goad him as much as she wished but he would not rise to her provocation.

“I am not the same man you knew before,” he said.

“Evidently,” Laura said. “Four years can change a man.”

“Is it four years?” Dexter was not going to admit that he could tell her the precise length of their time apart in days and months, and possibly hours if he was honest. “I had forgotten.”

“Of course you had,” Laura said. He saw a faint bitter smile touch her lips. “Men always do.”

Well, no doubt she knew the truth of that with her experience. Dexter tried not to care. He wrenched open the garden gate and marched up the path.

The grounds at The Old Palace were empty and overgrown. The house seemed shuttered and still. Dexter looked around. “Where are your servants?”

Laura seemed discomfited. “I do not have a large staff. They are probably busy about the house somewhere and my daughter is out in the village with her nursery maid, so no one will be about.”

Dexter had yet to meet a duchess who had less than a regiment of servants. They seemed to think that being waited upon hand and foot was their inalienable right. But perhaps Charles Cole had left Laura without a feather to fly and no means to support her young daughter. The new duke held the title now and there was apparently no love lost between Henry Cole and his cousin’s widow, so he would not be financing her, either. At any rate, no one answered the door to Dexter’s increasingly forthright knocking.

“Oh, put me down!” Laura said, clearly losing patience and slipping from his arms before Dexter could stop her. “I can open a door for myself and I am chilled to the bone, dripping here.” She looked at him. “You are very damp, as well, Mr. Anstruther. Do you require a change of clothing? I do believe there are some old clothes of my grandfather’s somewhere about the place should you need them.”

“Thank you, your grace,” Dexter said, with a slight bow, “but I shall collect my fishing gear and walk back to the inn as I am.”