A proper gentleman should never tempt a lady to do anything that might put a whisper of question to her good name.
A PROPER GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO WOOING THE PERFECT LADY
SIR VINCENT TYBALT VALENTINE
Apprehension assailed her.
Loretta shivered and watched the gray darkness swallow the duke. There had been a few times in her life that she’d felt fear so raw and intense that had it collected in her chest and throat, constricting her breathing.
And yet there was only one other time she could remember ever feeling such a sense of panic for someone’s life, and that was for her mother when she’d had pain in her stomach and nothing she was given could make it go away.
Loretta closed her eyes against the heartache of her mother’s suffering and loss of her life. It was long ago. Loretta was but a young girl of seven, yet she could remember it as if it had just been yesterday. She didn’t like recalling that time when she was so easily frightened by the perils of life. There had been other times when she’d been fearful. When she’d defied her uncle’s order to marry the viscount or take a vow that would forever change her life. But that had been a different kind of dread than what she felt now.
No one’s safety had been in question.
Now there was.
Would the duke be able to keep up with the boy in the freezing storm? Did he have a family out there who needed help, too? Swirling around to the servants behind her, Loretta swept all that from her mind and said, “The duke is right. The boy can’t stay in those wet clothes. Mrs. Huddleston, go to Paxton’s room and bring a nightshirt and stockings. We’ll find trousers to fit him later. Hazel, start a fire in Arnold’s room. We’ll put him in there to change. Nollie, prepare a warming pan to put at his feet. Bitsy, you go for extra blankets and start warming them so we can wrap him in them as soon as they return.”
None of the four women moved. They all looked as shocked as she felt, or perhaps they just weren’t as sure as she was that the duke would return with the boy in tow.
“Don’t stand there staring at me,” she said to the stricken women. “Go now.”
Loretta whirled back to the open doorway. Watching the darkness was what she was going to do. She hugged her arms to her chest and stepped out. She thought the roof over the portico would keep her dry, but the howling wind immediately whipped at her hair and blew freezing rain into her face, causing her to shiver. The sheer sleeves of her velvet gown did nothing to help shield her from the weather, but she had to watch for them. It was the only thing she could do.
Her eyes searched the darkness, looking for any sign of the two. The only movement in the blustery storm was the barren branches of the surrounding trees. Seconds turned to minutes. Loretta’s stomach started to quiver and her whole body shook, but she continued her watch.
If the duke didn’t find the lad soon, they’d both catch a chill. The boy could already have one. He’d looked so deathly pale that it had frightened Loretta.
Where were they? Had the duke lost track of the youngster? Loretta’s cold dress began to feel damp against her skin. Her nose, cheeks, and toes started to feel numb, but still she waited. She knew staying outside wasn’t helping the duke find the boy, but she was determined that, if they could withstand the cold, so could she.
At last she saw movement. The duke walked out of the darkness toward her. He was carrying the lad. She stepped back inside and opened the door wider so they could enter without delay.
“What happened to him?” Loretta asked, closing the door behind them.
“He collapsed.”
“Follow me,” she said, leading the way out of the kitchen, down the wide corridor, and around a corner that led to Arnold’s room. Hazel and Nollie were kneeling at the fireplace. Loretta flung back the covers on Arnold’s bed and said, “Lay him down here. We must get his clothing off.”
The duke laid him on the bed and turned to her. “Perhaps you should leave the room, Miss Quick. I can handle this.”
Loretta stared down at the still, innocent-looking face. All color had drained from his lips and cheeks. His dark hair was wet and littered with fine crystals of ice. Her heart went out to the nameless boy.
She turned to the duke and said, “No. I want to help him.”
“You are a lady.”
“You are a duke,” she countered.
“He will probably feel more comfortable when he wakes knowing that it was a man who undressed him and not a lady.”
“Good heavens,” she admonished, brushing aside his concern. “He’s just a child. He won’t care who undressed him. There’s simply no need for you to worry about my sensibilities at a time like this. He needs help. I’ll start with his shoes and you take off his other clothing, before it saturates the bedcovers.”
With that she bent over the lad’s feet and started untying his shoes. The wet, frozen laces had been knotted several times. She worked at the small, tight knots in the dim light, but they wouldn’t budge. She tried just pulling the high-top boot off, but without undoing the laces, that wasn’t going to work, either.
“Oh, gooseberries,” she exclaimed under her breath and jerked her hands to her hips in frustration. “How could such a thin waif tie his strings so tight?”
The duke touched her shoulder, and she glanced up at him in surprise.
“Allow me to help you, Miss Quick.” He reached down and pulled a small pearl-handled dagger from inside his boot and within seconds cut the laces all the way up the boot.
“Do you always have—”
“Yes,” he answered before she finished her question.
“Thank you,” she said and went back to her task.
Holes had been worn in the soles of the cheaply made boots, and as she tugged off the first one she realized that they were really too small for him. She wouldn’t be surprised to find that his heels and toes had blisters on them. His stockings were in no better shape. Dirty, holey, and much too small. His trousers were worn at the knees, too short and frayed at the hem. Loretta had never been very good with a needle and she’d found out that her maid wasn’t, either, but she would see to it that he had better clothing and coverings for his feet before he left her house.
Once the boots and stockings were removed, she lifted his cold feet and wrapped a blanket around them until the duke was ready to remove his trousers. When she looked back toward the lad, his shirt was off. His face was still. Not a twitch or flutter of his eyelids. His chest was rail-thin and a bluish white.
Loretta could have counted every rib if she’d had the courage to keep looking at him. Her throat closed and her heart went out to this youngster who’d been reduced to begging for food. It didn’t seem right. Suddenly he didn’t feel like a stranger, but a part of her household, and now her responsibility.
“I have some clothing,” Mrs. Huddleston said, rushing up beside Loretta. “Oh, the poor dear,” she whispered staring down on his frail body. “I’m here now. Out with the both of you,” she said brushing her hands toward the duke. “I’ll take care of him from here.”
“We want to help him,” Loretta said.
“I know,” the housekeeper said. “You’ve already done more than you should. I’ve got the girls to help me. This isn’t proper for either of you. Now go on, out with you. Go finish your dinner, your conversations, or what have you. Out.”
Loretta looked at the duke, and he nodded. Perhaps it was time to let Mrs. Huddleston take over. She would know best what to do to warm him quickly.
“All right,” Loretta said, looking at her housekeeper. “I’ll check on him in a little while.”
The duke looked down at Mrs. Huddleston, too, and said, “After you get him dressed and covered warmly, rouse him and give him something warm to drink. Do it often throughout the night.”
“I will, Your Grace. I’ll take good care of him.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Huddleston.”
The woman beamed a smile at him and turned to her task.
Loretta led the way out of Arnold’s room and back the way they’d come and toward the dining room. She was chilled and shaken. And she desperately wanted the boy to be all right.
At the entrance to the dining room she stopped and asked, “Would you like to go back to the table? I don’t believe dessert was served. I can do that.”
The duke shook his head. “I think I have a brandy waiting for me in the drawing room, unless you’d like to go back to your dinner.”
“No, I was finished.” She turned and they walked back to the drawing room.
The corridor was wide in the old house, and the duke walked beside Loretta. She didn’t turn to look at him but felt his presence. There was a calming sense of safety being so close to him. She entered the drawing room before the duke and walked over to the secretary where she’d left the glass of brandy she’d poured him earlier. The duke strode over the fireplace, picked up the poker, and stirred the embers before adding a piece of wood to the rekindling fire.
“I’m sorry we have so few servants here and you have to tend the fire yourself.”
He turned back to her and, after a slight chuckle, said, “Though I seldom have the opportunity, I actually enjoy doing some things for myself.” His gaze zeroed in on hers. “Besides, there’s something pleasing about stirring up warm, glowing embers.”
Loretta had a suspicion he wasn’t talking about the embers in the fireplace but the ones that had been simmering between the two of them all throughout the evening. She walked over and handed him the glass, holding it very close to the bottom so there would be no chance their fingers would touch. The sensations he’d stirred inside her last time were too confusing to repeat.
“Thank you,” he said, and took a drink.
Loretta glanced toward the window. The storm hadn’t abated. She could hear the sleet hitting the windowpanes and the howling wind whipping fiercely around the corners of the house. She breathed a sigh of relief that the duke had found the boy and that they were all safe inside. Shaking off the chill she felt, she rubbed her hands up and down her arms and moved closer to the fire. Her sleeves were damp from the short time she’d waited outside.
“I keep wondering what he was doing this far out. There are no other houses nearby, and it’s almost half a day’s ride to the village by carriage. We’ve had Gypsies once or twice stop and ask for food but not often. They don’t usually travel this far out. Perhaps he could have been running away from someone and became disoriented and lost.” She looked up at the duke and asked, “Did you have a chance to ask him anything?”
“No. He was already too weak to say much.”
“Do you suppose he has a family who’s out there lost somewhere in the cold, too? Should we go look for them?”
“No, Miss Quick. I can’t say for sure, but I doubt anyone is with him. Judging from his worn clothing, he’s probably been on his own for some time. He has the look of street urchins I’ve seen in London. Most likely he’s been wandering around out here for days.”
“Oh, no, Your Grace, I don’t want to consider that possibility.” She turned toward the fire and, without giving clear thought to exactly what she was going to say next, murmured, “It was just very disturbing seeing him looking so helpless. So cold. Thin.”
The duke took hold of her arm and turned her to face him. “Here,” he said and put the glass up to her lips. “Take a sip.”
She shook her head and leaned away from him. “Oh, I couldn’t possibly do that.”
“Yes, you can. You’re cold. It will warm you and help calm you.”
“No, I’m all right. Really, it’s just he appeared so lonely, neglected, and mistreated.” The image of her mother lying in the bed, weak with pain so forceful she couldn’t be still or quiet, flashed through Loretta’s mind. “I don’t want to see anyone suffering.”
“Drink it,” the duke commanded softly as the glass touched her lips again.
His expression was so comforting that Loretta opened her mouth and sipped. The thought of drinking from the duke’s glass was so foreign to her, so intimate and unheard of, she hardly noticed the sting of the strong liquid on her tongue and at the back of her throat as she swallowed.
“Another,” he said quietly.
There was something comforting about what he was doing and how softly he was speaking that she obeyed without further question.
He smiled at her. “I find it incredible that you are so strong you can not only hold your own with a duke, but give him a dressing-down, too, yet the sight of a poor derelict young beggar has you trembling.”
“I’m not trembling,” she argued defensively, but quickly added, “Not exactly, anyway. But it’s easy to worry about someone who is completely helpless. I won’t apologize for that.”
His eyes softened even more. “I wouldn’t want you to. It doesn’t astound me that you are a compassionate person. It pleases me.”
“Anyone would be under the circumstances. He looked so lost and frightened when he saw you. And then when I saw how tattered his clothing was, I just wanted to help him.”
He held the glass up to her lips for her to drink again. And she did.
“He’s not suffering right now. I think it’s best for you not to think about the boy at all until he wakes and we can talk to him and get answers.”
“I suppose you’re right,” she answered, some of her unease about him fading, knowing he was safe and warm now at Mammoth House.
“That probably won’t happen until tomorrow,” the duke added. “I think we need to let him rest tonight.”
She gazed up into the duke’s green eyes. “It was kind of you to go out into the storm after him and then help undress him.”
The duke finished off the brandy and placed the glass on the nearby table. “I may be a rake, Miss Quick, but I’m not heartless.”
“Of course not. I would never think that you wouldn’t help someone who was in such dire need of rescue.”
“You helped him as well.”
Loretta realized she was feeling calmer. Warmer. And for the first time in longer than she could remember, she felt softer. And still odder yet, she felt a strange closeness to the duke. It was as if both of them caring for the poor beggar had formed a bond between them, and she wondered if the duke felt it, too. Or perhaps what she was feeling was the direct effects of the brandy doing its job of relaxing her.
“Your hair is wet.” She spoke quietly, letting her gaze stay on his eyes. “So is your coat. And for the second time today. You need to change out of your damp clothing.”
“I am fine. But look at you. There are glistening droplets of water in your hair, too.”
Feeling self-conscious, she lifted her hand to smooth her hair over her ear. First one side and then the other. “It was very windy outside.”
“You shouldn’t have stayed out on the portico watching for us.”
“Everything was being handled inside. It was the only thing I could do to help.”
“You missed a spot.”
He reached up and brushed his fingertips through her hair along the crest of her ear. His touch startled her for an instant and she reached up to smooth her hair again. The duke caught her hand in his, and the warmth of his touch sizzled through her as he kissed the back of her hand. His kiss was so unexpected and gentle that Loretta’s settled breathing became short, shallow gasps.
He continued to hold her hand in one of his while, with the other hand, he continued lightly threading his fingers through the side of her hair. A few strands tumbled from the chignon at her nape. The gentleness of his caress was soothing. Almost mesmerizing.
His fingers slipped farther down. Slowly, he outlined its shape before circling behind her ear to lightly caress the skin there and along the column of her neck.
The heat of his gentle touch seeped inside her soul. Her body soaked it up as if it were a dry cloth being submerged in a pan of cool water.
“Have you ever been kissed, Miss Quick?” He took her hand to his lips again. “On your lips.”
His voice was husky and low, and the muted gleam in his eyes was seductive. She didn’t want to be a victim caught under the sensual spell he was casting over her, but she had no will to fight what was happening between them. Loretta knew what their exchanged glances meant. Their mutual attraction was undeniable.
She stood there, barely breathing, and allowed him to titillate her with his compelling touch, provocative words, and anticipation of something more to come.
“Yes,” she answered truthfully. “Viscount Denningcourt kissed me.”
“Often?” he asked.
“Everyone has their own perception about things, about time. I don’t know what you would consider often, Your Grace.”
“Every time he saw you.”
“No.”
“More than once?”
She hesitated again and tried to pull her hand away, but his fingers tightened around hers. He wasn’t letting go of her. His gaze remained firmly on her face, searching her eyes. His expression was so intense, her breaths became uncomfortably shallow.
“Yes,” she admitted and looked down at the fire, needing to do something to distract from the tension that was building stronger between them with every second that passed. “But I only saw him a few times before the—” She stopped and looked back up at him again.
“The wedding?”
The almost wedding, she thought. Inhaling deeply, she turned back to the duke and stared into his searching eyes. “The planned wedding that never took place.”
He nodded once. “I stand corrected. What did you think of the viscount’s kisses?”
Another easy answer. “Nothing,” she answered honestly.
A smile twitched the corners of the duke’s handsome lips. “What did he say about them?”
Loretta lifted her chin and recalled the words. “That he was to be my husband and kisses were necessary.”
The duke bent his head closer to hers. His gaze swept up and down her face, lingering on her lips for a few seconds before capturing her attention again. “Ah, Miss Quick, kisses shouldn’t be necessary. They should be anticipated, desired, craved even, and most of all enjoyed. Tell me,” he said, sliding his arms around her waist and catching her up against his chest. “Did he sweep you up in his arms with an urgent eagerness like this?”
She inhaled a sharp startled breath. A surprised “N-no” passed her lips. Not certain what he intended, her body stiffened in his strong embrace.
His sure hands slid up to the middle of her back and pressed her tightly against his chest, confining her with his warm, powerful body. “Did he hold you possessively like this and make you feel as if you were someone too precious to let go?”
“No,” she whispered again on a raspy breath, trying to regain her composure before she completely lost herself in the wonderment of what he was doing and saying.
“Did his lips hover longingly just above yours as mine are now, just waiting for you to invite him to take a taste of you?”
“No,” she said for the third time, but for some reason her tremulous voice made it sound more like a desperate moan.
His face came closer still, his mouth less than an inch away from hers. His gaze was so penetrating, it was as if she were taking every breath he took. Excitement grew inside her. Her heart beat erratically and loudly in her chest, drowning out the sounds of the bits of ice hitting the windowpanes and the crackling of the fire behind them.
She wasn’t a blushing eighteen-year-old as she had been the first time the viscount held her. She knew what she should do now. Push out of his arms. Run away. Scream, or at the very least try in some way to dislodge herself from his strong embrace that held her captive.
But reality was never quite as simple as it should be. The invitation he issued was far too seductive to rebuff. Against her better judgment and relying only on her feelings, she chose to stay in his arms.
The earl leaned his hard, muscular body closer into hers. She felt his strength, his heat, and though she’d never felt it before now, she understood the meaning of desire.
In a low and suggestive voice, he whispered, “Did he kiss you with such fervor your breath left your lungs and your knees turned so weak they wouldn’t hold you? Did he make you feel like you were the only woman in the world who could satisfy his yearning for passion that churned like a raging storm in his soul?”
“No, of course not.”
The duke’s arms tightened around her even more and in a gruff whisper he said, “Then I’m going to do that for you, Miss Quick.”