“The house just wants some… warmth,” Emmie said, frowning at a portrait of the fourth Duke of Dunfallon holding pride of place over the library mantel. “And a little less plaid, perhaps. You have plenty of books, and…”
Her voice trailed off as she studied the fourth duke, whom Dunfallon had always considered the merriest of a sober lot. The old fellow actually smiled. He held the reins of a muscular hunter with one hand. With the other, he stroked the head of an adoring brindle hound. The portrait had caught a happy moment in what surely must have been a happy life.
He’d been well-liked, a perennial favorite for Scotland’s parliamentary delegation, and his nine children had had nothing but pleasant memories of him, if their diaries were to be believed.
“He has your nose,” Emmie said, skimming glances between Dunfallon and his ancestor. “You have the same humor in your eyes. I suspect he read to his children, and his letters to his wife were tender and sweet.”
“Papa burned those letters too. Claimed they were a lot of sentimental tripe unbecoming of a duke’s dignity.” Though they had been tender and sweet—also bawdy in places—and Secondus had copied the best of them before Papa could destroy them.
Dunfallon busied himself poking at the fire. In a room this size, even three hearths would need more than a day to chase off the chill, but Emmie had asked only yesterday to see the official Dunfallon town residence.
He would rather have had the staff tidying and dusting for a week, but the staff, such as it was, amounted to an elderly couple and their grumpy middle-aged son. All the dusting in the world would not get rid of too much plaid and too few comfortable places to sit.
“How many volumes do you have here?” Emmie said, slowly turning a circle.
“Too many that haven’t been read in a century. I hope you are equal to the task of sorting the lot. I look in on the place from time to time, but it’s not… I prefer more modest quarters.”
“And the Albany doubtless likes the cachet of having you on the premises.” Emmie took the poker from him, set it aside, and wrapped him in a hug. “When you are writing stories again, you will need two studies. One for when you are the duke and one for when you are the author.”
She did this—dropped little references to his renewed efforts with a pen, and each one made Dunfallon feel more like a false suitor. She also bestowed lavish affection upon him—hugs, caresses, kisses to his cheek—and that made him joyous and a little wary.
He gave her a squeeze and stepped back. “Would you like to see the ducal suite?” They’d already toured the cellars, kitchen, pantries, and maids’ quarters, along with endless parlors. Mr. and Mrs. Peyton were off visiting a cousin and they’d taken their grumpy son with them, so this reconnaissance mission was blessedly private.
“I’d like to see everything. The music room, the sewing room, the apartment you had in your youth. The whole lot.”
“Then see it, you shall.” He led her by the hand from the library, which was more of a book museum than a place to read and repose, and took down a lamp from a sconce. On a winter afternoon, the house was frigid and gloomy. Young Peyton—a mere lad of fifty-some—had lit a few candles, which made the corridor feel even darker.
“You don’t have good memories of this place,” Emmie said.
“London was a challenge. Papa brought us down from Scotland to show us off and to subject us to tea dances, though dancing for Secondus became unsupportable. We were to do the pretty, charm everybody, and uphold the family honor without exception.”
“You were making a perpetual come out,” Emmie said as they mounted the stairs. “My aunt uses that phrase to refer to the ladies who are dragged by the heels from the schoolroom at barely seventeen and still among the hopefuls five years later.”
“Were you counted in that number?”
“My parents’ deaths meant I was spared until the antediluvian age of nineteen, but the five years among the ferns and wallflowers applies. Then word got around that I had decent settlements—thank you, dear Auntie—and the bachelor midges began to swarm.”
“Speaking of settlements, I should meet with your brother or send my solicitors to meet with his.”
“I’d rather you met with Aunt.”
They traversed another shadowed corridor and stopped before a carved oak door.
“I am calling upon your aunt tomorrow,” Dunfallon said. “Will you be there?”
Emmie traced the horn of a rearing unicorn on the door panel. “I should be at West Bart’s.”
She moved her fingertips over the smooth curve of the creature’s neck, the sweep of his back, the muscular curve of his rump, and Dunfallon was abruptly aware—very aware—that he was alone with his intended and about to step into the private suite of rooms where they would, heaven bless the notion, spend many a night together.
And possibly some afternoons, the occasional morning, and the odd predinner nap.
“Emmie, how much time do you spend at West Bart’s Lending?”
She ceased caressing the rampant beast. “A fair bit.”
He moved closer. “Emmie?”
“I’m there most days, at some point. I open and close most of the time. The library is not open on the Sabbath, of course, but the rest of the week, people need to read. Let’s have a look at the ducal suite, shall we?” She lifted the latch and sailed ahead of him into a surprisingly warm space.
The fires were more effective here, or Mrs. Peyton’s supervision of her menfolk more apparent. The hearth was blazing, and the screens had been moved to flank the windows, blocking the worst sources of drafts.
Emmie chafed her hands before the flames and scowled at the painting of Dunfallon Castle in all its craggy splendor above the mantel.
“Why so few pictures of family, Dane?”
“Papa allowed no pictures of family outside the gallery at Dunfallon Castle, but I had the fourth duke dusted off to keep an eye on the library. He’s the forebearer I am most proud of. Wouldn’t hear of clearances, while my own father…”
She held out a hand to him, and he took it. “Your father cleared his tenants from the land?”
“We own a pair of islands, and yes, he cleared the one. Engaged in the proverbial midwinter evictions, complete with sobbing women, howling babies, and shivering children. The steward was able to see that every family’s possessions were transported to the mainland, and he settled any who wanted to remain in Scotland as best he could—a total of eleven families. The other six were given passage to Nova Scotia and as many coins as I could spare. At sixteen, I hadn’t all that many coins.”
The warmth of the room faded, replaced by memories of the bitter salt-sea air, and Papa sitting snug in his coach, watching a bedraggled parade of former tenants troop off the dock and into a bewildering and difficult future.
“All for his bloody sheep,” Dunfallon added quietly.
Another memory joined the bleak assemblage in his mind. “The old women, one by one, spit upon Papa’s fine coach. They were no longer his tenants and not on his land, so he could do nothing by way of retribution. Instead, he fired the steward that day, before those seventeen families, citing unreliable loyalty as the unpardonable sin.”
“What did you do?”
“I stormed off to university and wrote stories about kittens. I came into a competence at seventeen and set up a decent pension for our former steward. His son is the current steward. When MacAlpin wasn’t drilling me on my Roman philosophers, I tasked him with locating our departed tenants. Nine of the families who remained in Scotland have since returned to the island. Sheep, as it turned out, are a poor investment.”
Emmie settled into a wing chair. “I thought Scotland and Wales were awash in sheep.”
“In England and Wales, the climate allows for some variety in the breeds, but for my family’s holdings, only the hardiest stock can stand up to the winters. Those sheep produce coarse, cheap wool, and because every laird and landowner is now raising sheep—the crofters having all been chased off the land they farmed profitably for centuries—the market is glutted. The military—now at peace—was the largest single purchaser of finer wool, so the higher-grade products are also glutted. Then too, any country can find a breed of sheep adapted to its climate, so wool exports have also declined.”
Emmie made a lovely picture seated beside the fire. Dunfallon took the second chair without asking her permission. They were to be husband and wife, after all.
Also duke and duchess.
“Are those nine families happy?” she asked.
“They are struggling, but I am determined that they will eventually thrive. Sheep are a blight on the land, and in another few years, the damage would have been irreversible. We’re making progress, but reclaiming the island is slow going.”
Emmie unfastened the frogs of her cloak. “I wanted to see this house because we will live here at least part of the time. I thought I would come away from our tour with happy imaginings about re-stocking the library and donating older titles to West Bart’s. I gather you’d like more than the library taken in hand.”
She was clearly keen on managing the library, at least. That left only fourteen other rooms abovestairs immured in plaid.
“I was hoping,” Dane said, “that you might, that is… new wallpaper in the music room, fresh curtains in the family parlor. The touches that can banish ghosts and turn a museum into a home.”
Emmie wrinkled her nose. “This is important to you?”
“I hadn’t put it that way, but yes. The house reeks of my father’s grand consequence, and yet, I haven’t the resolve or the time to tackle the changes needed.”
“New appointments as well?” She still sounded less than enthusiastic.
“Carpets too, if you’re up to that. I had thought to hire a decorator but I don’t want my home to look decorated, I want it to look as West Bart’s does—inviting, dignified, comfortable, secure.” He fell silent rather than lapse into pleading.
“Very well,” Emmie said, smiling slightly. “I will besiege the house, but don’t be surprised if every room ends up with at least one shelf of good books.”
“You may buy out every stall in Bloomsbury, and put bookshelves on every landing, and in the servants’ hall. I was also hoping you might like to see the bedroom.”
Now, where had that come from?
“A cheering thought, the bedroom. As you explain to me about sheep and evictions and burned love letters, I am gradually realizing that I will be a duchess. Sorting through the library here will be the least of the tasks expected of me, won’t it?”
Dunfallon rose and offered Emmie his hand. “We will go on as we please, my dear. You can expect sweet, tender correspondence from me, I assure you. I regard Papa’s greatest redeeming feature to be his use as a bad example. I may not have a clear idea of how I will execute the duties of my station, but I know how I will not go on.”
Emmie kept a grip on his hand after she’d risen. “You will write more wonderful stories, for one thing.”
That again. “I will not evict loyal tenants. I will not insist on being part of the parliamentary delegation to ensure that my interests take precedence over those of my equally deserving neighbors. I will not expect our children, should we be blessed with offspring, to puppet about Mayfair in tartan get-up while they spread lavish falsehoods about the wonders of the family coffers or our Scottish holdings.”
He tugged her into his embrace, and she bundled close with wonderful enthusiasm. “This will be a happy household, Dunfallon. If it is within my power to make it so, we will have happy households. You will need peace and quiet for your writing, but if the children come along—and I pray they do—we will also have laughter, and raids on the gingerbread, and music, and love.”
What courage she had, to envision so sanguine a future for them.
“And what of your own stories, hmm?” he asked, speaking with his lips against her temple. “Will you need two parlors, and will you write under a dashing pseudonym?”
Emmie eased away. “Let’s have a look at the bedroom, shall we? I’m dying to see how the bed compares to the sofa in my office.” She opened the door to the next room and disappeared from sight.
Dunfallon was left wondering what she could possibly mean—comparing the ducal bed and the office sofa—and hoping she meant what he thought she meant.
Being a duchess in theory was one thing. Every girl of means and standing was raised to envision herself with a circlet of jewels sparkling atop her head. The fairy-tale duchess wore gossamer clothing, spoke only in the sweetest tones, and uttered only wise, kind, or clever words.
She did not fall asleep among the biographies. She did not come to her exalted station at such an advanced age that half her childbearing years were behind her. She did not spend most of every weekday at West Bart’s Lending, the closest thing she’d had to a home in recent years.
These thoughts followed Emmie into the bedroom, as did a few hollow platitudes.
Every bride had misgivings.
Every ducal bride doubtless brought a duchy’s worth of doubts with her to the altar and never mentioned one of them.
Long courtships were for couples who lacked the means to establish their own households.
And yet, when she beheld the ducal bed, a commotion ensued in her belly. She would spend her nights for a significant portion of her remaining years in this luxurious enormity.
“It’s huge.” As large as many a housekeeper’s parlor, the bed curtains the blue and white of the Scottish saltire. The counterpane was more blue and white with touches of gold and rose. “One expects hot-air balloons to float about beneath the canopy.”
Dunfallon had come into the room and closed the door. He used a taper to light two candelabra on the mantel and a third on the bedside table.
“I had this room made over in blue, white, and rose, which were my mother’s favorite colors. The late duke was for waving plaid about on every occasion. I’ve nothing against plaid, but as a decorating theme, it becomes busy in small doses.”
“Hence the library.”
“And the servants’ hall, the first formal parlor, the second formal parlor, the family parlor… I promised myself I would never wear a damned kilt once I became the duke.”
Emmie moved a blue silk-covered pillow near the head of the bed so the arrangement was symmetric. “Now that is a shame. I’m as susceptible to the charm of a kilted laddie as the next woman.”
Dunfallon tossed the taper onto the crackling fire in the hearth. “You are as impressionable as Aberdeen granite, Emerald Armstrong.” He prowled closer. “For you, I’d put on the whole kit, provided you assisted me to get out of it.”
Touring the house had been a bad idea. With each room visited, Emmie had felt her spirit sinking and her confidence as well.
The porcelain room—not a porcelain cabinet.
The silver room—not a silver chest.
The third formal parlor, reserved for receiving bankers, solicitors, and stewards representing other peers.
But the bedroom reminded her of a singular and comforting fact: She was marrying Tertius Dane MacManus MacTavish Dundee—she’d made a little tune to help her recall all those names—and he was a very dear and desirable man.
Emmie leaned near enough to whisper. “I will assist you to remove the ensemble you’re wearing right this moment, if you’re amenable, Your Grace.”
“Dane,” he said, drawing her into a hug. “When private, or anytime you please, my name is Dane. Are you intent on ravishing me, Miss Armstrong?”
“Is that hope I hear in your voice?”
“Is that worry in yours? I did not bring you here to enable a seduction, Emmie. We’ll have to make a home of this place, and I rely on you to guide that process.”
“We will also have to make a marriage in this place, among others, and engaged couples are expected to anticipate their vows.” Emmie hadn’t planned to tryst with Dane on this inspection tour, but how much more important was it that they inspect each other rather than a lot of parlors and pantries?
He sat on the enormous cloud-bed, where he looked entirely at ease. “Join me, and we will talk about this marriage of ours.”
Emmie was seized by a desperate reluctance to talk. She would analyze her motives for propositioning her intended later, probably a dash of bridal nerves, braided with a pragmatic need to get the first encounter behind them, and a touch of fear that, unless she took this step now, her courage might falter.
And if she dithered, then Dane might decide that a bluestocking duchess wasn’t such a fine idea after all.
As Emmie settled beside him on the bed, her feet a good ten inches from the floor, she admitted that her duke was… formidable. Lord Hercules had not been formidable. He’d been arrogant and underhanded, and Emmie hadn’t understood the difference.
Dane was not arrogant. He was kind and patient, and lovely, and—did this even signify to him?—a successfully published author.
“Does one negotiate the ravishment of one’s prospective husband?” Emmie asked, hands folded in her lap.
“One discusses a significant step to be taken with one’s prospective wife, because it’s not a step that can be untaken, Emmie. How awful was the fumbling Lord Hercules?”
“I haven’t any way to assess that. I did not enjoy his attentions, and Aunt says that means he mucked it up beyond all recall. I do enjoy your attentions—so far.”
Dunfallon looped an arm around her shoulders. “Promise me something.”
“I’m listening.”
“Promise me that if you are uncomfortable for any reason—the light is in your eyes, you don’t like where my hands are, you don’t care for the position, I’m going too slowly or too quickly—don’t let matters get to the beyond-all-recall stage before you demand an intermission, Emmie.”
She was bundled against his side, a wonderful place to be, and yet, she had questions too. “How long do you expect this to take?”
He brushed a kiss to her temple. “Until early spring, if I had my way, but alas, half the afternoon will have to do.”
The commotion in Emmie’s belly became a full-blown riot. “Half the afternoon?”
“At least.”
“I suppose we’d best get started.”
Dane laughed and rose from the bed.
Dunfallon had spoken the truth. His intention had been to show Emmie the house, nothing more. That she had taken it into her head to consummate their courtship left him…
Pleased, of course. He cared for her deeply and desired her madly, and she was right: Even in polite society, couples typically engaged in intimacies on the way to the altar. Emmie knew that all too well.
And yet, something about the quality of her determination made him uneasy. She did not appear overcome with lust for his person, and she had not planned this assignation—he would bet his Shakespeare First Folio on that.
Some notion had taken hold of her, a now-or-never sort of desperation, and Dunfallon honestly could not decide where the honorable course lay.
If he rejected her overtures, she’d be hurt. The strutting-male part of him also loudly bellowed that he’d be a fool to deny himself shared pleasure with his intended when she was sitting on the very bed.
If he consummated their courtship, and Emmie did not care for the experience, where would that leave her? The answer hit him like the flat of a claymore to the chest: She’d be free to change her mind. To go back to her books and prodigies and leave Dane to the dubious joys of duking.
“Let’s start with your hooks, shall we?”
Emmie’s gaze turned wary. “My hooks?”
“If we are to all the pleasures prove in that bed, then shedding our clothes comes into it. The room is toasty, I’ll warm the sheets, and then we will set the mattress aflame.”
Emmie rose and gave him her back. “I wasn’t sure. Hercules favored perching me on tables or bending me over the nearest chair.”
Lord Hercules was about to lose his coach and four and his favorite riding horse over a polite hand of cards. Polite, but not friendly. If Hercules was foolish enough to accept an invitation to spar at Jackson’s, his losses might include a few teeth as well.
“The bed for us,” Dunfallon said, stroking his thumbs over Emmie’s bare nape. “Lots of pillows, a pleasant nap between romps, soothing caresses, and passionate kisses.” He pressed a lingering example of same to her nape. “All the time in the world.”
“You’ll use your toothpowder?”
Ye mischievous fairies, Lord Hercules deserved to lose a testicle. “Of course, and you are welcome to borrow my toothbrush as well. This suite is kept in readiness for me no matter how reluctant I’ve been to dwell here.”
Emmie’s dress was simple, the buttons fewer than Dunfallon would have found on a more fashionable creation. He loosened her corset strings while he was making himself useful and treated himself to lazy kisses along her shoulder.
“You’re sure, Emmie?”
“Oh, yes. Very sure.” She sounded determined rather than enthusiastic.
“Why don’t you nip behind the privacy screen, and I’ll get out of my boots?”
She turned, hugged him, and rustled off to the corner screened by a japanned panel. Again, her air was not that of a woman anticipating a pleasurable interlude, but rather, that of a nervous bride.
Perhaps, Dunfallon thought as he divested himself of all but his breeches, Lord Hercules should lose the deed to his house too. But no, probably not. Lady Hercules was already serving penance enough.
Dunfallon ran the warmer over the sheets, heard water splashing against porcelain, and reveled in a sense of humming desire. Good fortune had given him a bride intent on sorting matters out before she found herself married to a bumbler, and this was simply more proof that Emmie would be a spectacular duchess as well as a wonderful wife.
She deserved to try his paces, and she deserved—more than deserved—to change her mind if she found him wanting.
Which, centuries of bred-in-the-bone Highland pride thundered, he would not be.
“Your turn.” Emmie had emerged from the privacy screen wearing her chemise and a banyan of green silk that did marvelous things for her eyes. Her hair was a dark braid over one shoulder, and her feet were bare. She studiously avoided any glances at the vast bed or at Dunfallon’s naked chest.
Tenderness cut through his desire, or rather, blended with it. “That dressing gown looks much better on you than it ever did on me. Give me two minutes.”
He spent closer to five, making liberal use of the toothpowder, washing everywhere for good measure, and dragging a brush through his hair.
When he emerged from the privacy screen, Emmie was standing by the bed, looking pensive and precious.
He loved her. Loved her courage and pragmatism. Loved her disdain for polite society’s games. Loved her affectionate nature and her devotion to her causes. He held out his arms, and she bundled into his embrace.
“I’m nervous, Dane. I’m trying to pretend to a sophistication I cannot claim. You are right that Hercules was… distasteful. He was brusque and hurried and less than particular about his hygiene.”
Dunfallon was coming to love the way they fit together and to treasure the bodily trust Emmie showed him. He positively hated Lord Hercules.
“I’d cheerfully kill him for you, my dearest, but murder charges would interfere with our honey month. I suppose ruining him will have to do.”
“You can do that?” She sounded hopeful, bless her.
“In the space of seventy-two hours, I will wreck him, foot, horse, and cannon, if you like.”
She sighed, and Dunfallon felt some of the anxiety flow out of her. “Lord Hercules’s ruin is a cheering thought—I consoled myself with dreams of his downfall for months—then I began to write fiction instead. Dashing cads never end well in my tales. I’d rather you spend your energies writing more kitten stories, Dane.”
He stroked her back and wondered how much literature had been born of an author’s sense of discontent and defeat.
“Dashing cads should never prevail,” he said, “and dashing damsels should always win the day—and the duke.” He kissed her, hoping discussions of Lord Hercules and blasted kittens could be set aside once and for all.
And thank the celestial powers, Emmie kissed him back. Dunfallon was developing a sorting system for her kisses. The peck on the cheek signaled he’d said something she approved of. The gentler buss indicated he’d tugged at her heartstrings. The smacker conveyed lustier joy…
Emmie wielded words well, but she was an orator with kisses.
In the ducal bedroom, she added blatant passion to her repertoire, taking a taste of him and then daring him to reciprocate. Though desire rode Dunfallon hard, he tried to go slowly and considerately, to be all that Ham-fisted Hercules had not been.
“I’m panting,” Emmie said, linking her hands at Dunfallon’s nape. “I’m panting like the heroines in all the Gothic novels. I do believe my bosom is actually heaving.”
She studied the indicated part of her anatomy, as did Dunfallon—for about two mesmerizing seconds.
“You are so wonderful,” he said, scooping her into his arms. “I want the whole of you heaving and panting and sighing. I want you shouting your pleasure to the rafters and then demanding the same again only better.” He settled her on the bed, peeled out of his breeches, and came down over her.
“I want that too,” she said, “providing you are heaving and panting as well.”
He kissed her nose. “I am already panting. Kiss me some more, Emmie.”
She kissed, she caressed, she sniffed, and stroked, and explored, and Dunfallon’s grasp of reason began to unravel.
“This is why you said we’ll be here half the afternoon, isn’t it?” Emmie asked, straddling him. “Because there’s so much more than hurried couplings behind the parlor door.”
“Hurried couplings behind the parlor door can be delightful,” Dunfallon said, tracing her breasts through the soft linen of her chemise. “An unexpected bit of heaven. With you, I want everything. The stolen moments, the sleepy joys, the towering passion. I want quiet nights by the fire and rousing political arguments over breakfast. I want… I want you, Emmie. All of you, and I want to give you all of me.”
He wanted her in the next five minutes and for the next fifty years—at least. She curled down to his chest and snuggled close.
“The things you say, Dane. Now my heart is heaving.”
So was his, and among the wishes and thoughts bobbing around on his emotional sea was a regret. Nobody had ever loved Papa like this, clearly, or the old fool would not have gone so far astray from what really mattered. For all his wealth and consequence, the previous duke had died unmourned and alone, and worse, he had probably died lonely without even realizing it.
“I love you,” Dunfallon said, gathering Emmie closer. “I love you madly, Emerald Armstrong.”
“And I love you, Dane MacTavish Dundee and all those other names that have flown straight out of my head. Someday I will slip and call you Mr. Dingle in a muddled moment.”
“Just please not Tertius,” he said, though her mention of Mr. Dingle sent a wisp of misgiving through him. “Emmie, I think you should know I’m unlikely to ever again write children’s stories.”
“Nonsense.” She kissed his chest. “We’ll make time for that, Dane. I realize that you’re a very busy man, peer of the realm, manhood’s finest flower, et cetera and so forth. But you’ve put off taking up your pen for too long. A hundred other peers can make speeches in Parliament. Only you can write more kitten stories.”
“No, I cannot.” He needed for her to understand this. “Like you, I wrote out of discontent with matters beyond my control. That is behind me now, and rather than writing silly little stories, I have other means of exerting my influence.”
Emmie angled up, using her elbow on his chest for leverage. “Silly… little… stories? Are you quoting your father?”
“Not intentionally. Just because he was a martinet doesn’t mean he was always wrong.” And in that pronouncement, Dunfallon had indeed sounded ominously like dratted Papa.
Emmie dismounted and sat beside Dunfallon, the covers swaddling her to her armpits. “But you are a writer. A brilliant, gifted, clever, published writer. You cannot walk away from that.”
Dunfallon sat up as well rather than lounge around on his back when Emmie was apparently off on some female flight of illogic.
“I already have walked away.” That statement had come across as disdainful, so Dunfallon tried to explain. “I was marched away from my literary ambitions years ago, Emmie. Lectured at length on the folly of those aspirations while my personal copies of the book were burned before my eyes. My associations with published authordom are not cheering, and I do not intend to renew my literary efforts.”
“How can you sound like a duke even when you aren’t wearing a stitch?” she muttered, worrying a nail.
How could she carp on Dunfallon’s youthful folly when she was all but naked in their bed?
“Emmie, I am a duke. As you’ve said, some things cannot be helped. I have the ear of the Regent, I dine on occasion with Wellington, I have connections in many a foreign court, thanks to my tour of duty in Vienna. These privileges make it incumbent upon me to spend my time on affairs that matter—bills, parliamentary committees, estate problems. Intrepid kittens are no longer on my schedule.”
Tell me you understand.
Tell me you are disappointed but bow to my unassailable reasoning.
Tell me you love me.
Emmie flipped back the covers and hopped off the bed.