Confessions of a Duchess. Nicola Cornick
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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.
She had sent him away.
She had not done it gently. She had been deliberately cruel, for she judged that if she had explained her reasons he would have tried to override them and she would have been all too easily persuaded. She had hurt him and in the process she had broken her own heart as well as his. She had made him think her a faithless wanton. And now, four years later, she had had to send him away again still thinking she was a hypocrite and a whore.
Laura got to her feet and took an anxious turn across the room. When she had sent Dexter away before she had thought that would be the end of the matter. She had never imagined that the outcome of that passionate encounter would be her beautiful, precious daughter, Harriet.
It had taken her a long time to realize that she was pregnant. At first when she had missed her courses she had assumed that the misery and loss she had suffered had affected her cycle. She had been married to Charles for over ten barren years and during that time had gradually come to assume that there would be no children. Her childlessness had been a terrible grief to her, made all the more painful because she knew there was probably no cause for it other than the fact that her husband never came to her bed. When she had fallen pregnant with Hattie she had suffered no sickness in the mornings and had been out riding until her sixth month. Thinking back over that time, she wondered whether she had simply been denying her situation or had been so transfixed to find herself enceinte after all those years that she was afraid even to think about it in case it was all an illusion. Whatever the case, she said nothing until her friend Mari Falconer had challenged her gently about the pregnancy and then she had finally admitted to her oldest friend that the baby was not Charles’s child.
Laura put her hands to her head for a brief moment and then allowed them to fall. Her pregnancy had been a thing so precious and so closely guarded that she was afraid that if anyone or anything should threaten her baby or her future happiness she would surely run quite mad. And then Charles had arrived and had done precisely that. He had sworn to take the child away from her as soon as it was born. He had shouted at her and hit her, pushing her down the stairs…
Laura closed her eyes for a second to blot out the memory