Chapter One

       Late July, 1815

       Northamptonshire, England

      “Sir, are you aware that you are trespassing on the Duke of Northamptonshire’s estate?”

      Rufus Drake, who was the aforementioned Duke of Northamptonshire, had very recently jumped down from his horse on this warm July day. He’d undressed down to his drawers, with the intention of swimming naked in the pool situated in the woods of said estate, in the hopes it would refresh him after the dusty and tiring two days of riding up from London.

      He instantly froze in the action of unfastening his drawers at the sound of the disembodied female voice, and instead gave a narrow-eyed glance about him to locate the owner of the huskily pleasant voice.

      “I am up here, sir. And I would appreciate it if you would cover yourself before continuing this conversation!”

      Rufus surveyed the surrounding trees, his dark brows rising above his vivid green eyes as he spotted a pair of female legs dangling down from a nearby horse-chestnut tree. Completely bare and very curvaceous female legs.

      He abandoned the idea of removing his drawers, but did not replace his shirt as he strolled over to stand beneath the tree, slightly taken aback as he looked up into the dappled green branches and saw the young and beautiful owner of those legs. Her missing stockings and dainty cream boots were resting upon her knees as she perched on the branch slightly above his head.

      Her slender fingers clutched the branch for balance, and were completely bare of rings, indicating she was an unmarried lady. Nor was there maid or companion with her anywhere that Rufus could see. Meaning she was very much alone here in the woods.

      With him.

      Huge blue eyes looked down at him from a flushed heart-shaped face, her nose slightly upturned, her lips surprisingly full and sensual. Riotous blonde curls were secured upon the crown of her head, with several damp tendrils falling about her creamy white shoulders above a white muslin gown decorated with tiny green leaves.

      A gown that currently appeared to be caught on the branch above and behind her as she once again attempted, and failed, to pull the material down to cover her legs. The loosened bodice of the gown gaped open as she bent forward, to reveal the tops of full and creamy breasts.

      A state of undress which would seem to indicate, added to her damp tendrils of hair curling at her throat and nape, that she had also recently been tempted by the lure of a cooling swim in the pond.

      Rufus’s appreciative gaze returned to that obviously discomforted face. “It would seem that you are in almost as much of a state of undress as I,” he drawled dryly.

      The blush deepened in her cheeks. “And I would appreciate it if you would stop ogling, sir!”

      He gave an unapologetic grin as he continued to look up at her appreciatively. “Are you perhaps a wood nymph?” he teased.

      Her eyes snapped with impatience. “There is no such thing as a wood nymph.”

      “No?”

      “Absolutely not,” she assured him with a practicality totally at odds with that throaty, seductive voice.

      “You are not a wood nymph, and obviously you cannot be the Duke of Northamptonshire himself, so surely you must also trespassing?” he drawled pointedly.

      Another firm shake of her riotous golden curls. “I have the duke’s permission to…to stroll through the woods here.”

      Rufus raised an eyebrow beneath the fall of his ebony-dark hair. “Indeed?”

      “Yes.” She nodded emphatically.

      As Rufus had never so much as set eyes on this enchanting female in all his two and thirty years, he knew that it was not this

      Duke of Northamptonshire who had given his permission.

      Of course it could have been either of his two cousins, or perhaps their father, his paternal uncle, before them.

      As the only child of the second son born to the previous, previous, previous Duke of Northampton, Rufus had not expected to ever hold the title himself. Except that Rufus’s own father had died shortly after he had been born, and unfortunately his uncle along with both his cousins had also perished in the past three years. The former to a seizure of the heart, his elder cousin to influenza, and the younger when he succumbed two days later to the injuries he had received at the battle of Waterloo.

      Nor had either of his two cousins ever married and produced an heir. The elder because his inclinations ran in quite another direction, and he had refused to even contemplate the taking of a wife. The younger cousin, David, should have been married but had died before the wedding could take place.

      Which had left Rufus, as the only Drake still alive, to inherit the Northamptonshire title and estates.

      And damned irritating it was too, after all his years spent about Town as the infamous and rakish Mr Rufus Drake, the unashamedly vastly wealthy business entrepreneur. As the untitled third grandson of a duke, it had been required that Rufus provide his own fortune. Which, if he did say so himself, he had succeeded in doing exceedingly well, helped along by a small inheritance left to him by his maternal grandmother. He was now one of the wealthiest gentlemen in England.

      His maternal cousin Zachary Black, the Duke of Hawksmere, had laughed uncontrollably when informed that Rufus was now the Duke of Northamptonshire. Mainly because Rufus had teased his cousin unmercifully over the years at Zachary’s certainty of inheriting their grandfather Black’s title, while Rufus