CAROLE MORTIMER was born and lives in the UK. She is married to Peter and they have six sons. She has been writing for Mills & Boon since 1978, and is the author of 200 books. Carole is a USA TODAY bestselling author, and in 2012 she was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II for her ‘outstanding contribution to literature.’

Visit Carole at carolemortimer.co.uk or on Facebook.

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Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

About the Author

Rufus Drake: Duke of Wickedness

Back Cover Text

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Griffin Stone: Duke of Decadence

Back Cover Text

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Christian Seaton: Duke of Danger

Back Cover Text

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Copyright

Rufus Drake: Duke of Wickedness

Carole Mortimer

A tantalizing bargain…

When innocent Anna Bishop finds herself in a compromising position, the only person who can save her is Rufus Drake, notorious rogue, new Duke of Northamptonshire and the man upon whose lands she’s trespassing! But the duke’s help comes with conditions…

The deal: a single kiss in exchange for his assistance.

The complication: that one kiss unleashes an insatiable desire and, suddenly, a single taste can never be enough…for Rufus or for Anna!

Dangerous Dukes

Rakes about town

To Peter, as always.

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 could continue merrily on, free of such responsibilities.

Admittedly, Hawksmere, once that humour had passed, had then invited Rufus to be an honorary member of the Dangerous Dukes, an exclusive group of gentlemen consisting of Zachary and his four closest friends. As an aside to that honorary membership, Rufus had further been invited to join them as an agent for the Crown. Which was Rufus’s main reason for being in Northamptonshire at all.

Rufus had received a letter just days ago from Matthew Turner, the estate manager Rufus had personally hired the previous month to oversee the Banbury Hall estate, after receiving word that the previous estate manager, Jacob Harker, had absconded into the night. Turner had since discovered that Harker had also taken that month’s rents from Rufus’s tenants with him when he left, and suggested in his letter that perhaps Rufus might himself wish to look into the matter more fully himself.

Rufus had no interest in the pittance that had been stolen, but the previous estate manager’s sudden disappearance was now of deep interest to him after what he had learnt from his cousin Zachary a week or so ago.

It transpired that just weeks before the battle of Waterloo there had been a plot afoot to assassinate the Prince Regent, and so throw the country into chaos. It had been discovered that several government secretaries along with servants in prominent households in England had been involved in that plot.

Rufus had decided it was now incumbent upon him to look more closely into why his previous estate manager had absconded so suddenly and, if possible, ascertain as to whether or not he had been part of the ring of spies working against the Crown.

That being so, Rufus had risen very early yesterday morning, instructed his valet to pack up enough of his clothes for months, just in case, and to then travel to Northamptonshire by coach. Then Rufus had set off alone on horseback for his ducal estate.

He had travelled a long way yesterday, and the inn he had stayed at the previous night had been passable at best. After another overly warm morning of travel he had been tempted, upon arrival at his estate, to take a dip in the pool he remembered so affectionately from his visits there as a child.

This delay was partly because of the need to refresh himself, but also, he admitted, to a reluctance on his part to actually make his presence known at Banbury Hall for a while longer.

Was it possible the enticing nymph in the tree was the daughter of his new estate manager? He vaguely recalled that Turner had told him that he was widowed but had a daughter. Although what the age of that daughter might be, Rufus had not enquired; a month ago he had merely been relieved to pass on the onerous task of running Banbury Hall to someone other than himself.

The young lady perched so prettily above him certainly looked as if she might be that worthy gentleman’s daughter; whilst her gown was not of the finest quality, it was nevertheless modish in style, as was the set of her golden curls, and the cream leather boots were surely too fine to belong to a daughter of one of his tenants.

“May I enquire as to your name, miss?” he prompted huskily.

She looked slightly taken aback. “Are you not going to dress yourself first?”

Rufus held back a grin at her persistence in wishing to avoid looking at the nakedness of his chest. “Your name, miss?”

“I— It is— You may call me Juliet,” she announced grandly.

Rufus knew instinctively that there was something not quite right with that statement. Admittedly, the name was fitting, considering her place above him in the tree. But he was certainly not her, nor any woman’s, doting Romeo! “And is that actually your name?” he drawled sceptically.

“Well, not exactly,” she conceded. “But it is my middle name, and comes from—”

“I am well aware of where it comes from,” Rufus assured dryly. He was not a complete ignoramus; as the grandson of two dukes he had suffered through the requisite years at Eton and Oxford. The fact that this young lady also appeared to have received some education would seem to confirm Rufus’s earlier assumption that she might very well be the daughter of his new estate manager. “I would simply prefer to address you by your given name.”

She gave a heavy sigh. “It is nowhere near as pretty as Juliet.”

Rufus held back a smile, finding himself exceedingly—and surprisingly—diverted by this young woman. The long years he had spent in London, and just a month of holding the title of duke, had rendered him more than a little jaded where the female sex was concerned. “Nevertheless...”

“It is Anna.” She grimaced. “Plain, uninteresting Anna.”

There was nothing in the least plain or uninteresting about this woman. The opposite, in fact. She was beautiful, diverting, and her state of dishabille was having the most delicious effect upon Rufus’s libido.

“And might I also know your name, sir?”

Rufus had been grandly named after his two ducal grandfathers, his father and his mother’s brother, as Harold Algernon Edward Rufus Drake, but from birth had been known to the family and friends alike by the last of his illustrious names.

“Rufus.” He saw no sign of recognition of his name in her candid blue eyes. “Would you care to explain, Anna, why is it you are currently sitting up in that tree sans your stockings and boots if you were just strolling through the woods?”

* * *

Anna frowned her dismay, sensing, despite his politely enquiring expression, that he was somehow mocking her. And possibly with good reason, when she was indeed so scantily clad. He was also, Anna conceded, a gentleman more disturbing and handsome than she had ever encountered before.

Disturbing, because as an unmarried lady she had never before engaged in a conversation with a gentleman whilst he was dressed only his drawers. Indeed, she had never before seen a gentleman wearing only his drawers.

The skin of his bared torso was a warm olive-brown. His shoulders were broad, his chest and arms muscled. She observed with fascination the silky down of dark ebony that tapered down over his chest and stomach to disappear into the waistband of his drawers. She noted that his waist was lean and narrow above muscled thighs and legs.

From her position above him, Anna was also able to recognise that he was at least ten years older than her own twenty years, as well as exceedingly tall. True, most people were taller than her five feet, but this gentleman would surely tower over her by a foot or more.

He was a gentleman with fashionably overlong and tousled hair as black as midnight, and eyes the green of sparkling emeralds surrounded by thick, lush dark lashes, his nose long and aristocratic, with high cheekbones beneath taut flesh, and his mouth—

Oh dear me, his mouth!

This man had the most wickedly sensual and mocking mouth, the bottom lip slightly fuller than the top, set above a square and arrogant jaw.

As for the reason why she was currently sitting up in this tree, with her gown unfastened down her back and her stockings and boots upon her knees?

Propriety dictated she should not have been walking alone in the woods at all, of course. Nor did she, as she had claimed earlier, have an acquaintance with the new Duke of Northamptonshire.

But the duke was safely in London, and Anna had not considered it would matter, once she reached this secluded pond amongst the woods of Banbury Hall, if she were to take a cooling dip.

Consequently, she had been happily indulging when she had heard the approach of a horse wending its way through the trees. She’d been left with no choice but to hastily wade out of the water and pull her gown on over the dampness of her chemise before hurriedly picking up the rest of her belongings and giving a hunted look about her surroundings.

She had hoped only to need to hide up in the tree until the horse and its rider had passed by, but had instead watched in horror as the man had halted and dismounted when he’d reached the pond.

He had then removed his hat and sat down on the grass to remove his black Hessians. He followed swiftly with his jacket, waistcoat, cravat and shirt, the latter revealing that magnificently muscled chest.

Anna’s heart had begun to pound in her chest when he had proceeded to unfasten and remove his pantaloons. Allowing him to see her own state of dress was completely scandalous, but watching this handsome gentleman undress was surely even more so.

Except Anna had been unable to stop herself enjoying the experience.

Chapter Two

“Anna? I asked why you are currently sitting up in that tree….”

Guilty tears filled her eyes as she desperately sought for some explanation other than the truth. Her brother Mark would not be displeased but disappointed if he were to learn of her impetuous actions.

Perhaps if her mother had lived, Anna might have been able to talk to her of the terrible restlessness that sometimes overcame her. The aching need inside her for adventure and excitement, and the desire she felt to break free of the shackles her lowly station in life had placed upon her.

She had once talked to her papa about those feelings, and she had thought he understood, but not Mark. Her brother was so good and kind, and perfectly content with his life as parson of the parish. Which was, of course, to be commended.

Except...

Anna’s own feelings of restlessness had become greater of late rather than less. So much so that she now often escaped the parsonage to be on her own, to pretend that she was not herself at all but was instead a lady of the world, and that she could travel to London if she cared to. To Cairo. The Americas. That she might go anywhere she chose.

But in none of those daydreams had Anna ever envisaged finding herself in such a scandalous situation, and with a gentleman as rakishly handsome as the one standing in front of her.

Everything about him spoke of wealth and privilege, from the beautiful black stallion he rode to the perfectly tailored clothes he had so carelessly dropped onto the grass as he undressed. He possessed that air of bored cynicism so many of the gentlemen seemed to wear about them like a mantle.

Could he not see, could none of them see, how lucky they were just to be men? To have the freedom to do what they wanted, and go where they wanted, whenever they wanted?

“I am still waiting, Anna.”

She cast off the feelings of melancholy, raising her chin determinedly, even as she inwardly asked for forgiveness for the untruths she was about to tell. “As I have said, I was strolling through the woods—”

“Trespassing.”

Anna ignored the jibe as she continued with her tale. “When I heard a poor little kitten meowing for help from up in a tree—”

“This very tree?”

“And being a good Samaritan,” Anna continued doggedly, despite his mockery, “I, of course, had no choice but to climb the tree and offer my help.”

“Would you not have climbed the tree more comfortably if you had continued to wear your boots?” her tormentor taunted as he leaned comfortably against the trunk and looked up at her, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes almost on a level with her bared limbs.

Anna tried again to pull her gown down—to no avail; it really was stuck fast on the branch slightly above and behind her. “I had to take off my boots so that I might remove my stockings. They are both expensive, you see, and I did not wish to damage them.”

“Very commendable of you,” he drawled.

“Unfortunately,” she continued determinedly, “once I had climbed up here, the kitten decided it did not need my help after all and it jumped nimbly to the ground before running off.”

“Very ungrateful of it,” her tormentor nodded with a gravity that was completely nullified by the humour she could see glittering in his mocking eyes.

“Whereas I,” Anna stated firmly, “appear to have caught my gown on a branch and am now stuck fast.”

Rufus could see that, and he could recognise the blush of guilt colouring her creamy cheeks for exactly what it was. He had been a major in the king’s army, and in charge of dozens of mostly reluctant soldiers, and as such he was certainly capable of identifying a lie when he was told one. “Tell me, Anna,” he drawled as he straightened, “was there even one word of truth in that pretty story?”

That guilty flush deepened in her cheeks. “Are you calling me a liar, sir?”

“Oh yes,” Rufus confirmed without hesitation. “As I said, it was a pretty tale, and very well narrated, but all a lie, nonetheless.”

Blue eyes warred with his unwavering green ones for several long seconds before she lowered her lashes and gave a defeated sigh. “I really was strolling through the woods initially,” she murmured softly.

“And latterly?”

She grimaced. “It has been so hot these past few days, and the pool looked so inviting.” She gave another sigh. “But then I heard your horse approaching through the trees, causing me to leave the water wearing only my chemise. I gathered up my things, and hoped by climbing the tree you would not see me as you rode past.”

Rufus glanced across to where his horse, Caesar, was unconcernedly cropping grass, and inwardly cursed the black stallion for having made so much noise on their approach. Seeing this beautiful and outspoken young woman dressed only in her wet undergarments would no doubt have been extremely pleasurable.

Almost as pleasurable as when she had looked her fill of his bare chest.

“Except I did not ride past,” he stated the obvious.

“No,” she accepted heavily.

He nodded. “Your gown is stuck fast, you said?”

“Yes.” She gave another ineffectual tug on the offending garment.

“Perhaps you might behave the gentleman and help me to become unstuck?” She added with what was no doubt intended to be a charming flutter of her long and silky eyelashes.

It was an affectation that had quite the opposite effect on Rufus as he was sure it was intended to have. He could no longer hold back his humour at the situation, as he first began to chuckle and then to laugh outright.

Anna did not see anything in the least amusing about her current dilemma, doubly offended as the gentleman rested his hands on his muscled thighs to bend over at the waist, completely overcome with laughter.

At her expense.

Which was not at all flattering when her intention had been to charm.

“I am glad you find this situation amusing, sir,” she finally snapped frostily.

He continued to chuckle for several more moments before finally straightening. “I find you entertaining, Anna,” he corrected gruffly. “Tell me, does the helpless fluttering of your eyelashes usually work on unsuspecting gentlemen?”

Anna gave a disgruntled frown as she admitted, “Always.”

“Utter fools, all of them!” He gave a bemused shake of his head. “And what makes you think I might be a gentleman?”

Anna swallowed warily as she saw there was now a predatory edge to his gaze as he looked up at her in challenge, again making her aware of the depth of the danger she had placed herself in with her impulsiveness.

After all, she knew nothing about this man, other than he was obviously wealthy and that his name was Rufus. And that she was currently vulnerable to his every whim.

Anna moistened the dryness of her lips with the tip of her tongue.

“One must have faith in human nature, sir.”

“Must one?” Rufus murmured as he watched the movements of that little pink tongue and imagined how its soft heat would feel running the length of him. Imagery which instantly sent his libido up another notch.

“Yes, of course one must,” she answered him firmly. “As such, I would very much appreciate your assistance in disentangling me from this branch.”

Rufus ran his tongue across his lips. “How much?”

She gave him a startled glance. “Pardon me?”

“How much would you appreciate my assistance in untangling you?” Rufus prompted huskily.

She blinked her long lashes, not with the intention of flirting this time, but out of nervousness. “I do not understand,” she finally murmured uncertainly.

Rufus could see the truth of that in her gaze, and was reminded that this young woman was at least ten years his junior, and possibly also the innocent daughter of his new estate manager at Banbury Hall.

But no one could ever accuse Rufus of behaving sensibly.

At least, they had never accused Mr Rufus Drake of behaving sensibly.

Nor, Rufus decided impatiently, did he intend for the Duke of Northamptonshire to become so inured in that role he allowed himself to become staid and stuffy.

“It is quite simple, Miss Anna,” he drawled mockingly. “What will you give me if I help to unhook your gown from the branch above you?”

Her slender throat moved as she gave another swallow. “I— As you can see only too well, I have nothing on my person I might give you.”

“Except for yourself.”

Her eyes widened in alarm. “I— How dare you!” she gasped in outrage. “I have not— I do not— I am not that type of woman.”

Rufus could see by her indignation that she certainly had not. “I am only requesting a kiss, Anna, not marriage,” he assured dryly, having discovered since inheriting the Drake title that a duke was a far more marriageable commodity than a mere mister, even one as independently wealthy as he was.

As such, the marriage-minded mamas of the ton had done nothing but thrust their daughters at him this past month whenever the Duke of Northamptonshire had appeared in public, to such a degree that Rufus had quickly learned not to appear in public. Even the sophisticated widows of the ton, with whom he had associated so congenially with before inheriting the title, now seemed to look upon him with avaricious eyes rather than come-hither ones.

Consequently Rufus had soon started to avoid those ladies too, resulting in there being a distinct lack of physical dalliance or relief these past few weeks.

Indeed, since inheriting the title Rufus had formed a new respect for his cousin Zachary and the other Dangerous Dukes, for having managed to avoid the parson’s mousetrap for as long as they had.

Although that was no longer true, since his cousin and two of his close friends had all married in recent months.

Rufus had always relished his freedom too much to have even the vaguest intention of joining their number. He enjoyed too much being able to bed whomever he chose, whenever, to even think of marriage to one single woman.

But, as he had already stated, his thoughts were not of marriage. “A kiss is not too much to ask for rescuing you, is it, Anna?” he now cajoled temptingly.

Despite her feelings of restlessness, those wistful hopes and dreams she had of a different, more exciting life, Anna had necessarily led something of a sheltered existence up till now. But not so sheltered that she had not suffered the occasional kiss on the cheek—or on one distasteful occasion, clumsily on the lips—from the young men in the area who had thought they might be allowed to court her.

The difference being, of course, that the man she knew only as Rufus was not a young beau interested in courting her, but a rakish gentleman who wished only to claim a kiss. He was also, Anna recalled with a quiver of delicious anticipation, a man who boldly claimed she should not assume he was a gentleman.

Here, standing before her, was the adventure, the illicit excitement she had so longed for.

And, really, how terrible could it be, to allow herself to be kissed by a man as handsome and assured as this one? A man Anna was sure would know exactly how to kiss a woman, so that she also enjoyed the experience?

“Are you visiting with people in the area?” she questioned warily. The last thing she wanted was to later discover that she had allowed herself to be kissed by a gentleman who was staying in Northamptonshire with friends or relatives she might also know.

His jaw tightened. “I am not.”

“Then you are merely travelling through?” she prompted just to be certain.

He gave a wicked rake of a smile. “Merely travelling through the woods, yes,” he nodded.

Anna gave a relieved sigh. “Very well, one kiss.” She gave a haughty inclination of her head. “If you will help untangle my gown and assist me down from this tree.”

“That would appear to be two kisses.”

Her eyes widened. “I beg your pardon?”

“The price of the original kiss was for untangling your gown,” her tormentor drawled. “The second is for helping you down from the tree.”

Anna glared at him. “You, sir, are an opportunist.”

“Yes,” he confirmed unapologetically.

Anna was sure she had never met a man more infuriating, more audacious, more outrageous, more intriguingly, meltingly roguish as this one.

Chapter Three

“Should you not put on your pantaloons first?” Anna prompted in alarm as Rufus began to climb the tree with the dexterity of one of the primates she had once seen pictured in a book in her father’s study.

He paused briefly, the warmth of his breath currently fanning across her exposed knees. “They are expensive and I would not wish to damage them,” he mockingly returned her own earlier comment in regard to her lack of stockings and boots.

Anna’s trepidation grew as she realised just how vulnerable she was to whatever this man might wish to take from her.

Or, more worryingly, what she might wish to give.

Heat suffused the whole of her body as he continued to climb the tree, and she realised as he did so just how big he was. Everywhere. His tanned shoulders really were impossibly wide, and the bareness of his chest, with that down of silky black hair, was far too warm and immediate as he reached up past her to grasp on to the branch above, so that he might release the back of her gown, before then twisting his body round to sit on the branch beside her.

A warmth and immediacy that caused Anna to tremble as he sat far too close to her, the bare skin of his shoulder warm against her own, and allowing her to smell citrus and spice on his body, his cologne, along with a musky, totally male smell that she found equally as enticing.

“One,” he murmured pointedly.

Anna could make no pretence of not knowing what he was referring to, and her heart gave a leap in her chest as her gaze lowered to his chiselled lips just inches away from her own.

Sculptured lips. Wickedly sensual lips that surely did know exactly how to kiss a woman.

Her eyes widened as he slowly licked his bottom lip, before drawing it enticingly into his mouth with his teeth.

Rufus recognised Anna’s flush of arousal for what it was, and he realised too that he was enjoying himself, more than he could remember doing in a very long time. Years, perhaps. If ever?

He had taken bachelor apartments in London after finishing with Oxford, and the past ten years had seen his fortunes change dramatically. He had no interest in cards or a life of idleness, but had instead concentrated on his investments, doubling his money within months, before investing further.

Until one day Rufus realised he had so much money he could easily buy himself a house in one of the most fashionable areas in London, along with the servants needed to run such a residence, whilst he quietly continued to amass even more wealth.

He had enjoyed the company of ladies during those years too, of course. Very much so. He had stayed well clear of married ladies, however, nor had he wished to become entrapped into a marriage with one of the simpering young debutantes of the Season.

The young debutantes and their families were desperate to make a match to one of the richest men in England. His family connection to the prestigious Dukes of Hawksmere and Northamptonshire were not to be dismissed, either.

Cynical perhaps, but Rufus had no illusions in regard to London Society and how those loveless marriages were decided upon. And he wanted no part of it—not the suitable marriage, nor the demure miss, who would no doubt have been advised by her mother to lie passive and unmoving in the marriage bed while her husband impregnated her. After which she could banish him from her bed until her lying in was over. When the whole miserable cycle would begin all over again.

An heir was now necessary, of course, but Rufus had every intention of choosing his own wife when the time came.

The young woman seated on the branch beside him was not of the ton, nor was she a married lady or a simpering debutante. Nor did the circumstance of their meeting—she was currently as unclothed by choice as he was!—lend itself to any outraged cries of ruination on her part, if he should steal a kiss. Or two.

Which Rufus had every intention of doing.

Sitting as close as they now were, Rufus could appreciate just how delectably kissable Anna’s slightly moistened lips were. They were naturally rosy in colour, and there was an endearing dip in the centre of the fuller lower lip.

Her unfastened gown was still gaping down slightly at the front, allowing him a tantalising glimpse of her wet chemise as it clung damply to the fullness of her breasts, tipped with pert nipples the same rosy-red colour as her lips.

To kiss or touch those would be going too far, but that did not mean Rufus could not be aroused by the sight of them.

He raised a hand to cup her cheeks, her skin feeling as soft and smooth as silk as he turned her face gently towards him.

Her eyes widened in alarm as Rufus held that gaze to slowly lower his head towards hers.

She gasped softly. “Perhaps we should not do this.”

And perhaps, if Anna’s breath had not been so soft and fragrantly warm against his lips, if she had attempted to avoid his kiss by turning away, then he might have been able to resist.

As it was, Anna did none of those things, but instead remained as still as a statue as Rufus placed his lips gently against hers

He pulled back only slightly. “Open,” he encouraged gently.

“Open?” she asked, breathing softly.

Rufus ran the tip of his finger lightly across her lips, parting them slightly before once again claiming them with his own.

She tasted delicious. A combination of honey and mint, the latter a freshness that made his lips tingle, followed by that tempting sweetness. The enticing dip in her bottom lip begged to be tasted by his tongue before he slid fully into the heat of her mouth.

Rufus continued to kiss her, to taste her, as he pressed back against the trunk of the tree, his arm about the slenderness of her waist as he pulled her in tight against him, the softness of her breasts pressed against the hardness of his bare chest.

He groaned low in his throat as he felt the shy, tentative stroke of Anna’s tongue against his own. Then she became bolder still, sucking his tongue deeper into her mouth, slowly at first, and then more demandingly as her confidence grew.

Anna came to her senses with a gasp, wrenching her mouth from Rufus’s the moment she felt a firm and hot hand cupping her breast, his knowing fingertips caressing the swollen and sensitised tip.

She used her free hand to push against his chest as he seemed reluctant to release her, her eyes wide, cheeks flushed, her breasts—the breasts he had touched so intimately!—rising and falling as she breathed quickly.

She had never experienced such a kiss, such searing intimacy, in all of her life before today.

She had meant the kiss to be merely a meeting of lips, in order to satisfy her side of the bargain, but the way that Rufus had kissed her—and she had kissed him—was nothing, absolutely nothing, like any other kisses Anna had suffered through in the past.

Instead she had felt claimed by him, by having his tongue in her mouth. Had felt as if she claimed him when she had felt drawn to return his passion.

His firm and chiselled lips had initially been surprisingly soft against her own, causing excitement to flutter wildly beneath her breasts. And her breasts had seemed to swell beneath the dampness of her chemise as the kiss continued, the rosy tips becoming an aching tingle, with an unaccustomed warmth spreading through the whole of her body before it had centred as a pleasant ache between her thighs.

It was an excitement that Anna had thoroughly enjoyed, until she had felt that hand cup her breast, and realised she had put a stop to these unexpected intimacies. Before it was too late.

The fact that she had needed to place her hand on the muscled nakedness of Rufus’s chest in order to push him away, and that her hand still rested against it, caused her to recoil back so sharply that she lost her balance on the branch completely.

“Steady, Anna!” Rufus warned harshly as he reached out to clasp both of her arms to prevent her from falling, his back pushing harder, painfully so, against the rough bark of the tree trunk behind him in order to maintain his own balance. “Perhaps we should get down from here? Before one or both of us is injured,” he added grimly, his lids narrowed to hide the expression in his eyes.

How had this woman aroused him so quickly and so heatedly? So thoroughly that he had touched her more intimately than he’d intended. To the degree that he had been on the edge of losing all control.

He was a man of two and thirty, and had bedded more women than he cared to remember since losing his virginity at the age of sixteen. The intervening years had rendered him both jaded and cynical where women were concerned, and he now approached all sexual liaisons with the same lack of emotions. All he wanted from his encounters was a release of his sexual tensions.

What happened just now had felt neither jaded nor cynical, but fresher and more arousing than anything Rufus had experienced before. Just as Anna herself possessed that same freshness of spirit.

Because she was fresh, you idiot, he rebuked himself. Any fool could see that Anna, despite the sharpness of her tongue, was a virgin, an innocent.

He had not meant to go so far as he had. He’d intended only to kiss her, to have a little fun himself, whilst at the same time punishing Anna a little for her recklessness in being alone out here in the woods, making herself vulnerable to any man who happened by. That the man had been him was purely coincidental.

One touch of Anna’s parted lips beneath his, the shy and then demanding caress of her tongue, and Rufus had felt himself stir with a pulsing, aching need for more. So very much more.

And that, Rufus old chap, is the road to perdition!

Because no father was going to allow a man—even a duke!—to take his daughter’s virginity without demanding some sort of recompense.

“I shall go down first,” Rufus rasped harshly before releasing her to turn away and begin his descent, his thoughts grim.

If Anna had not stopped him when she had—

Then both of them would have tumbled out of the tree and put an end to the disturbing interlude that way, Rufus assured himself, his good sense having returned to him the farther he removed himself from the lure of the warmth of Anna’s mouth and body. There was not even the possibility, even if he were to have practised all of his considerable sexual inventiveness, that the two of them would have been able to deepen the intimacy whilst still up in the branches of a tree.

Of course, he still had to resist kissing her again once they were both down on the ground, but good sense told him he had best do exactly that if he did not wish to make this situation even worse than it already was.

How the two of them behaved towards each other when they met again, probably in the presence of Anna’s father, was a subject for conjecture, but Rufus did not imagine that Anna would any more welcome her father knowing of her scandalous behaviour today than Rufus would.

No, it had been a pleasant interlude but it was not one Rufus believed it wise to repeat. His responses to her warned him that he should not demand that second kiss.

Rufus kept his movements brisk and impersonal, his gaze averted from that sensuous mouth and those creamy breasts, as he helped Anna to descend the tree. “Turn around,” he instructed briskly once she stood in front of him, intending to refasten the buttons at the back of her still-gaping gown.

Anna felt slightly befuddled as she obediently turned her back towards Rufus, disturbed by her reaction to being so thoroughly kissed, and by a man she had only just met.

His responses to her, the low groans in his throat, and the way his hands had roamed restlessly over her back before cupping her breast, had proved that he truly was not a gentleman.

Her confusion increased as she saw his expression was one of haughty remoteness as he turned away to pull on his own clothes. She sat down on the grass to put on her stockings and boots. It was almost as if he had not just kissed her so passionately, touched her more intimately than any other man ever had.

Nor had he made any demand for a second kiss in return for helping her down from the tree.

She eyed him uncertainly as she stood up slowly. “I…thank you for your help,” she murmured hoarsely.

He was now fully dressed, his glance impersonal, as he swung easily up into the saddle of his restlessly prancing stallion. “I advise that you do not make a habit of venturing out in these woods alone.” His mouth twisted into the semblance of a mocking smile. “Another man might not be so reluctant to take what you offer!”

Anna gasped at the deliberate insult. “I did not offer, you took!”

He looked down the length of his aristocratic nose at her. “You may tell yourself that if you wish.”

Anna felt the guilty colour heat her cheeks as she knew she had been a more than willing participant to their lovemaking.

Something a gentleman would most certainly not have brought to her attention.

She glared up at him. “I do believe I dislike you intensely.”

“Keep telling yourself that, my love, if it pleases you.” Rufus gave a mocking laugh as he doffed his hat and bowed in a caricature of politeness. “I will wish you a good day, Anna Juliet.” He placed his hat firmly back on his head before turning Caesar, not giving so much as a glance back as he urged the stallion through the canopy of trees and out onto the fields leading up to the majestic red-stoned residence that was the seat of the Duke of Northamptonshire.

Rufus continued to rebuke himself for his actions as he allowed Caesar his head. For allowing an innocent such as Anna to arouse him so completely he had forgotten who he was. Who she was.

A rebuke that became even more immediate when the first person he saw, as he rode into the cobbled stable yard of Banbury Hall, was Matthew Turner.

The older man was in conversation with one of the maids, but he excused himself immediately to hurry across the yard as he recognised Rufus. “It is very good to see you here, Your Grace,” he greeted as he took Caesar’s reins, a pleased smile lighting up his weathered face.

“I believe you wrote requesting my presence,” Rufus reminded abruptly as he dismounted, not at all sure how he should deal with this man after the earlier liberties he had taken with Turner’s daughter.

The older man immediately sobered. “Of course.” He nodded. “But first let me introduce you to my daughter.” He smiled proudly as he turned and beckoned for the maid to join them.

Well, this woman was clearly not the one he’d kissed so passionately in the woods just now.

And if Anna was not Matthew Turner’s daughter, then who the hell was she?

Where was she?

Chapter Four

“I must say, I was very surprised to learn that it was the parson’s sister who lied to me so brazenly on the last occasion we met.”

Anna stiffened, her back turned towards the owner of the voice as she knelt in the parsonage garden weeding the bed of herbs.

It would be an understatement for her to claim she had been dreading this meeting after the village became abuzz with the news that the new Duke of Northamptonshire had arrived unexpectedly three days ago and was now in residence at Banbury Hall.

Anna had not believed the duke’s unexpected arrival and her own meeting that same day with the stranger in the woods could possibly have been a coincidence; they simply did not have that many visitors riding through the parish in one day. Consequently, she had reluctantly been forced to accept that it was more than a possibility that the Duke of Northamptonshire was the same handsome gentleman who had stripped down to his drawers in front of her startled—and avid—gaze.

The same outrageous gentleman who had then teased and flirted with her.

The very same wicked man who had climbed a tree in order to assist her only so that he might claim a kiss as his reward! A kiss that had caused Anna to blush, warm and tremble with pleasure every time she had thought of it since.

She forced down those feelings as she rose slowly to her feet before turning to face the man who had surely come here to taunt and torment her for her past behaviour.

Anna was very much aware that he had once again found her in disarray; she always wore one of her oldest gowns for gardening, and her hair was slightly dishevelled from her exertions in the herb bed.

In comparison, the duke looked a picture of sartorial elegance, in a deep blue superfine with a silver paisley waistcoat over his snowy white linen.

He leaned confidently on the top of low wall surrounding the garden at the back of the parsonage as he nodded to her in mocking salute.

“I have asked forgiveness for the lie.” Anna’s gaze dropped from his. “Can you claim to have done the same, as you also lied to me when you said you were not visiting people in the area?” she reminded huskily.

“I did not lie, Anna,” Rufus denied smoothly. “I admitted only to travelling through the woods. And I could hardly claim to be visiting myself,” he reasoned.

Her eyes flashed deeply blue as she looked up at him. “A simple acknowledgement of being the Duke of Northamptonshire would have sufficed, as I am sure you are well aware.”

Rufus could not help but smile at this show of her previous sharpness with him, laying his hat on top of the wall and placing a hand beside it before jumping nimbly over into the garden.

“What are you doing?” Anna took a step back, having raised her hands to her breasts in alarm.

He strolled unconcernedly down the pathway to join her. “I have no intention of conversing with a wall between us when anyone might walk past and overhear us talking.”

That sentiment was all well and good, as Anna had no wish for anyone else to learn of the circumstance of their previous acquaintance either, but Rufus was now standing far too close to her.

So close, in fact, that he was able to reach out and take one of her hands in his. “There is no reason for you to fight me, Anna.” He frowned as she instantly attempted to release her hand. “Better.” He nodded as she reluctantly stilled but continued to regard him warily. “The truth of the matter is, I am still becoming accustomed to the fact that is who I now am. I was not born to be a duke, Anna,” he added as her gaze became quizzical.

Anna gave a slow shake of her head. “I do not understand.”

He smiled ruefully. “I am the third grandson of my grandfather, the only son born to his second son, and until five weeks ago I was just plain and uninteresting Mr Rufus Drake,” he dryly reminded her of her opinion of her own name in the woods that day. “I should never have become a duke, Anna, and truly wish I had never inherited,” he added grimly.

She gave a snort. “That is ridiculous!”

“Is it?” he mused softly.

“Of course,” she dismissed impatiently. “What gentleman would not wish to become a duke?”

“This one,” Rufus assured her, aware that his body was once again responding with its usual wilfulness at her close proximity.

Three days ago, Rufus had known his arousal was such that he had to get away from this young woman, or else break every rule he had ever set himself in regard to innocents.

And to Rufus’s chagrin and surprise, little else had occupied his thoughts but this young woman since.

No matter how hard he tried, he had been unable to rid himself of the memory of how soft and silky her skin had felt beneath his fingertips that day. How full and responsive her breasts. And her passion had been more than a match for his own as she’d returned the intimacy of his kisses. As for her taste... Rufus believed he had developed an addiction to that unique taste of honey and mint.

His mouth tightened as he recalled the last three frustrating days spent trying to ascertain the identity of his little wood nymph. Not as easy a task as it might have initially seemed.

He had not spent any time at Banbury Hall since he was a child; the Drake family was not a close or mutually sociable one, and as such he had absolutely no idea who Anna could be once he realised she was not Turner’s daughter after all.

The situation was one of delicacy. To ask outright for the surname and whereabouts of a girl called Anna would have placed them both in a questionable position.

And so Rufus had spent his time with Matthew Turner discussing Jacob Harker, the previous estate manager. Rufus had decided that the man had in all likelihood been involved with the other traitors to the Crown, unfortunately still in so many of the homes of the English aristocracy. Rufus had already sent word to his cousin Zachary in London, giving a detailed description of the man. Helped by the fact, he hoped, that Harker apparently had a distinctive mole on the left side of his neck.

There was nothing else Rufus could do about that while he remained in Northamptonshire, and so he had turned his attention to asking Turner for the names of all the people residing in and around Banbury, on the excuse that he wished to become acquainted with all his tenants. To Rufus’s frustration, during none of their conversations did Turner make mention of a young lady named Anna.

And then the young parson had called to see Rufus early yesterday evening, and introduced himself as Mark Bishop. Mark was the son of Andrew Bishop, the previous parson of the parish, and Rufus had learned through conversation with the younger man that he resided at the parsonage with his unmarried sister, Anna. A fact Matthew Turner, not being a churchgoer, had not seen fit to mention!

Rufus’s first instinct had been to return immediately to the parsonage with Bishop and see the man’s sister for himself. His second, more cautious response, had been to wonder whether it was possible that his Anna and the daughter and sister of two parsons could really be one and the same person. Rufus had questioned himself as to whether the spinster relation of two parsons would have behaved as she had in the woods that day.

But here Anna Juliet truly was, working in the parsonage garden, her blue gown slightly soiled from her endeavours, her hair softly ruffled by the lightly blowing breeze.

She looked utterly beautiful to him.

Utterly desirable.

Nor, he was pleased to have learned in the past few minutes, did her sharpness of tongue seem to have lessened in the least since learning his identity as the Duke of Northamptonshire.

“I did not wish to become a duke, Anna,” he repeated ruefully. “I liked my life exactly as it was, free of the responsibility of others, of all restraint. Until five weeks ago I could go where I wanted, be who I wanted, with whom I wanted.”

“And can you no longer do those things?”

He sighed. “Now I have numerous estates needing my attention, servants and tenants I am responsible for, along with all the other expectations of bearing the family title.”

Anna had never thought of a duke as being someone who had restraints placed upon him.

Restraints that seemed so strangely similar to her own, when all her close family relations were connected to the church.

All her life she had been Anna Bishop, the respectable daughter and then sister of a parson, her actions and words always guarded so that she did not bring embarrassment or shame upon her father or her brother.

But inside, shamefully, Anna had always longed for the sort of excitement she had known in this man’s arms three days ago.

“What are your own hopes and dreams, Anna?”

She looked at Rufus guardedly as he seemed to see, to recognise, her secret, wistful longings.

Her chin rose. “I have been the daughter of a parson all my life, sir, and now I am the sister of a parson, and since my mother died eight years ago, and I lost my father two years ago, I have been helpmate to my brother. I do not have any hopes, dreams or ambitions beyond that.”

Rufus did not believe her. He had seen the wistfulness of her expression just minutes ago; her cheeks flushed, the softness of her softly parted lips, as if she yearned for something just beyond her sight. Just beyond her reach.

“What if you should marry?” he probed softly.

She gave a humourless smile. “It is unlikely that I shall ever do so.”

Rufus’s relief at the realisation there was no particular young man in her life at present was instantly followed by surprise at why it should matter to him one way or the other.

His curiosity won out. “Why not?”

She shrugged slender shoulders. “I know all of the gentlemen in the area, and have no wish to marry any of them. Nor will I ever leave Banbury.”

This time Rufus had no doubts as to the longing, the ache, he could hear in Anna’s voice. “What if a gentleman were to take you away from here?”

She gave him a brief startled glance, whatever she saw in his face causing her to look quickly away again. “I told you,” her jaw was tight, “I am helpmate to my brother.”

“And what if your brother should marry and have children of his own?”

Anna gave a rueful smile, having no doubts that her brother would marry as he had recently taken quite an interest in Mary Turner, the pretty young daughter of the new estate manager at Banbury Hall. That Mark also hoped to entice Matthew Turner into his fold was no doubt an added incentive to that attraction. “Then no doubts I shall happily become the devoted sister-in-law to his wife and spinster aunt to his children.”

“And with each month and year that passes will you also become increasingly bitter as your own life passes you by?”

“How dare you?” Anna demanded indignantly, even as she knew this man, this duke, spoke the truth.

That he somehow knew her.

Rufus Drake knew of the yearnings she had in her heart; for excitement, freedom, to travel and to see the world outside Banbury. Of how she longed to be wholly loved and cherished by the man she would wholly love and cherish in return.

Yearnings that she would never voice, never acknowledge, but would keep hidden inside her like a bitter, festering wound.

“I dare, Anna, because I see that same restless spirit in you that I know is inside me.” He reached out to take a firm grasp of her chin as he tilted her face up towards his, so that Anna had no choice but to gaze up at him. “Admit it, Anna, you wanted me that day in the woods,” he encouraged gruffly. “You wanted me to kiss you, to make love to you.”

“No!” She gave a desperate shake of her head in denial of his words. Sweet, truthful, sinful words that caused her heart to clench painfully in her chest.

“You want me to kiss you now...”

“No!” She gave another frantic shake of her head.

“Yes, Anna.” Rufus raised her hand to stroke his lips across her knuckles, instantly aware of that same smell of mint he had tasted when he kissed her in the woods. “I love the way you smell,” he groaned as he rubbed her hand against his cheek.

A cheek that was hot with embarrassment.

Or desire?

“It is only mint from my herb garden,” she excused as she snatched her hand away from his and put it behind her back. “You must not do that. Anyone could walk by.”

“We have introduced ourselves now, you could invite me into the parsonage,” he suggested huskily.

“No, I— Our housekeeper will very soon be back from shopping in the village.”

“And is that your only reason for refusing me?”

“You must go! I cannot— We cannot!”

Rufus looked down at her as he heard the distress in her voice, and noted the look of panic in her expressive eyes as she looked up at him pleadingly. He gave a sigh before stepping back. “I am not going anywhere, Anna. And we will meet again.” It was a promise rather than a threat.

Anna’s emotions were in complete turmoil as she watched Rufus cross the garden to jump lithely back over the wall. He collected and put on his hat, nodding to her briefly before going on his way.

As if nothing had happened.

As if seeing her again had not shaken up his whole world in the same way that her own world had just been shaken on its foundations by seeing him again.

Chapter Five

Two more days passed before Anna saw Rufus again, and at a time and place she was completely unprepared for.

Hurrying out of the rain, on her way into the church to arrange the flowers for tomorrow’s Sunday services, she instead came to an abrupt halt as she saw a solitary man standing a short distance away in the churchyard.

Rufus.

He stood at the Drake crypt, head bent, seemingly unaware of the light rain falling and dampening his hat and clothes.

He looked so alone.

Which was a strange thought to have about a duke. A very wealthy and much-sought-after duke, as village gossip indicated that every well-connected family in the area had sent him invitations to dinner parties and hastily arranged balls.

Invitations Anna knew he had so far neither accepted nor refused.

She fought a battle within herself for several minutes as she continued to watch Rufus, part of her wanting to continue on into the church and begin her flower arranging and forget that she had ever seen him, the other part of her drawn to somehow try to alleviate some of his loneliness.

The softness of her heart meant the latter easily won out.

Leaving her flowers in the vestibule, Anna came back out of the church to walk down the pathway towards where Rufus stood.

Rufus knew almost instantly that he was no longer alone, sensing—no, feeling—Anna’s presence behind him, at the same time as he smelled the faint hint of mint he now associated only with her.

He turned slowly to look at her from beneath the brim of his hat. “You should not be out here in the rain.” The shawl she had draped about her shoulders was already showing damp, as was her pale green gown.

“Neither should you,” she countered gently. “Were you very close?” She looked up at the crypt where the names of Rufus’s uncle and two cousins had been added these past three years.

“Not close enough.” He gave a sad shake of his head as he too glanced up at his ornate family crypt. “I suppose we all think there’s plenty of time, that next week, or next month, or next year, we will make an effort to spend time with family, with those we love. And then fate decides otherwise.” He turned to look at her, “No, I was not close to my uncle and cousins, Anna. But I now wish that I had been.”

“You have other family?”

“Oh yes,” he smiled. “I have an interfering mother, and a maternal cousin who can be just as interfering.”

“They both love you, else they would not take the time to bother.”

Rufus looked at her incredulously for several moments and then he gave a rueful smile. “You are very wise for one so young.”

She shrugged. “I am a parson’s daughter.”

She was the strangest parson’s daughter Rufus had ever met. The only parson’s daughter he had ever met.

Anna was only in her very early twenties, and yet there was such wisdom in her eyes, so much understanding for what he had been trying to convey with words that, to him, seemed too trite, too dismissive.

He did deeply regret that he had been too busy with his own life to allow him to be close to his uncle and cousins, because now it was too late.

Was all of life like that? he wondered.

Was life, time, so fragile that it had to be grasped with both hands?

Was that how Anna had felt when they’d spoken two days ago? As if time, life, was passing her by? That it would continue to pass her by?

Was that how he now felt, standing in this churchyard, gazing up at his family crypt, where so many of his ancestors lay, including his own father? Did he feel that if he did not seize life, seize the things he really wanted, that he would lose them forever?

Rufus had become very introspective over the past couple of days as his thoughts dwelled on just that problem. Knowing that he hungered for something.

Or perhaps someone?

“I—” He stopped as the heavens suddenly seemed to open up above them, a deluge of rain falling down on them both. “Let’s get you into the church out of the rain.” He took a light hold of her arm as they hurried down the pathway.

Even with her shawl pulled up over her hair Anna was soaked through by the time the two of them reached the church vestibule.

“Do you love the rain as much as I?” She laughed with happiness as she removed her shawl before looking up at Rufus. He removed his hat, sweeping the dampness of his dark hair back from his brow. “I always feel that it cleanses everything and makes it brand new.” She continued to smile as she looked out of the arched entryway at the falling rain.

“Would it cleanse me, do you think, if I were to stand out in it?” Rufus mused unsmilingly.

She turned to look at him quizzically. “You already look very clean to me.”

He smiled ruefully. “I am talking of my past, Anna. Do you think the rain would cleanse me of that?”

Anna’s breath caught in her throat at the intensity of his gaze. “A person’s past,” she spoke carefully, “is exactly that, surely?”

“Is it?” He grimaced. “And what if that past has been less than reputable?”

“But honourable? Always honourable?”

His mouth twisted into a grimace of a smile. “Oh yes, always honourable.”

“Then it must be accepted as the past.” She shrugged. “For the past cannot be changed, we can only hope for the future.”

Rufus felt something shift deep inside him, as if a key had just been turned to open a part of him that had been locked away.

“Anna,” he murmured gruffly as he moved to take her in his arms. “Beautiful, wise Anna.” He rested his cheek against the silkiness of her hair.

Anna had no idea what was happening. Did not fully understand what Rufus was saying. But she did understand that he was in need of warmth and understanding, possibly because of that visit to his family crypt, that she had not been mistaken in how alone he had seemed.

Her arms moved about his tapered waist as she rested her head against his chest, and she became instantly aware of the rapid beat of his heart.

They stood like that for some minutes. Long, delicious minutes, when Anna simply enjoyed holding and being held. A time out of time.

A time that surely could not last.

“Would you be ready to do the church flowers now, Miss Anna?”

Anna pulled sharply out of Rufus’s arms, her face blazing with colour as she turned to look at Mrs Faulkner, the baker’s wife. She had arrived to help arrange the flowers. As she did every Saturday...

Something Anna had completely forgotten in Rufus’s company.

“His Grace was sheltering from the rain, and I was keeping him company,” Anna announced brightly as the elderly lady looked at the duke suspiciously. Unlike some in the village, Mrs Faulkner was not a gossip, thankfully.

Anna quickly made the introductions before announcing that it really was time for the two of them to go into the church and see to the flowers.

Rufus eyed her with amusement as he took his leave. “A pleasure to have met you, Mrs Faulkner. We will meet again soon, I hope, Anna,” he added huskily.

Anna was too embarrassed to reciprocate, too mortified at being caught in the duke’s arms by Mrs Faulkner, to even be able to look at Rufus again before he turned and left them.

* * *

“Did you arrange this deliberately?”

Rufus looked at Anna as she sat to the left of him at the mahogany table in the smaller dining-room at Banbury Hall, her head bent as she looked down at the folded hands on her knees, the softness of her voice sounding hurt rather than imbued with her usual fire.

No doubt that was because of the presence of Rufus’s butler who, having served their meal, now stood in attendance near the door.

Rufus motioned for Watkins to leave them, waiting until the other man had closed the door behind himself before answering her. “I am responsible for calling upon your brother after our meeting at the church this morning, and also for issuing the invitation for you and your brother to dine here with me this evening,” Rufus acknowledged. “But I certainly had nothing to do with your brother being called away to tend to one of his flock the moment our dessert had been served, leaving the two of us alone here together.”

Although Rufus accepted that he was guilty of persuading the young parson to allow his sister to stay and finish her meal, after which Rufus had promised he would see she arrived home safely.

Anna looked so beautiful this evening, her gown a pale lemon, with matching slippers on her feet, her hair shining like burnished gold in the last of the evening’s sun streaming through the dining-room windows, her eyes a deep and sparkling blue in her beautiful heart-shaped face.

“You are a duke, sir,” she answered him waspishly as she finally raised her head to look at him, “and no doubt capable of arranging anything you please.”

Ah yes, and there was that sharp little tongue that could amuse and arouse him in equal measure.

“Are you angry with me because of this morning?”

Anna eyed him impatiently, knowing it was not Rufus she was annoyed with, but herself. This morning she had allowed herself to forget who she was for a few pleasurable moments of being held in his arms. A pleasure she had paid for by suffering numerous questions from Mrs Faulkner as they’d arranged the flowers together, the elderly woman at last accepting that Anna had merely been comforting the duke, who had been overcome with emotion after visiting his family crypt.

“You did not have to come here this evening, Anna,” Rufus spoke quietly. “You could have used any number of excuses not to accompany your brother.”

Anna knew that.

But that part of her, which was wilful as well as impetuous, the part of her that so longed for adventure and excitement, had refused to allow her to do so.

Because she had wanted to see Rufus again. To know if her legs would once again become weak just at the sight of him. If her body would become aroused just by being near him...

A single glance at Rufus in his evening clothes and Anna had known without a doubt that she did indeed feel all of those things towards Rufus.

Achingly.

Futilely.

She was a parson’s daughter, and Rufus Drake was a sophisticated London gentleman, not to mention a duke, and at least ten years older than she.

“Anna?” He frowned as he stood up to stand next to her chair, his eyes holding hers captive.

Her heart raced. “What are you doing?”

“I believe you are well aware of what I want, what I have wanted since the moment you arrived here this evening.” His eyes gleamed with desire. “What we both want.”

It was indeed a desire, a need, that Anna echoed. With all her heart.

She swallowed. “But we should not.”

“I must, Anna.”

He bent to swing her up into his arms and carried her over to a chaise in front of the window, laying her down upon it before joining her, the heat of his body pressed close against her own, a pleasure Anna had never thought to know with him again.

“You have no idea how much I have longed, hungered, to hold you in my arms, to be with you like this again, Anna,” he murmured throatily as his head lowered and his lips captured hers.

If his hunger was even half as much as her own was for him to hold her, and make love to her, then Anna did know.

Chapter Six

It was as if the past six days had never been, as if they were simply continuing where they had left off that day by the pond, as Rufus’s hot, marauding tongue swept confidently between Anna’s parted lips, plundering, claiming, demanding that she respond in kind. A demand that Anna gave into willingly.

He gave a low groan of satisfaction as he felt the shy stroke of Anna’s tongue alongside his own, her hands moving up from his chest and over his shoulders before her fingers became entangled in the dark silky hair curling at his nape. He felt himself once again lost to satisfying his addiction to her unique taste.

He moaned as his lips moved to her cheek, the length of her throat, the creamy tops of her breasts. “I have hungered for this again since the day I met you, Anna. For the taste of you. For you,” he murmured urgently, knowing he spoke the truth, and that he had thought of little else, and no one else, since the two of them had first met six days ago.

“Rufus?”

“Yes, I am Rufus!” he urged fiercely. “Not Northamptonshire. Not a duke. With you I am only Rufus,” he insisted urgently.

She looked up at him searchingly. “What is it you want from me?” she finally murmured softly.

“Everything!” he assured her heatedly, his gaze feverish. “I’ve longed to be with you again, to touch you again,” he murmured achingly. “Will you allow me?” His hands were against the buttons at the back of her gown.

Anna swallowed before answering, knowing she should say no, that she would regret this madness tomorrow. That she would have time to regret it for the rest of her life.

But it was a regret she knew would be all the deeper if she now went against the dictates of her heart. She needed this memory with Rufus in order to make the rest of her life bearable without him.

“Yes,” she breathed shyly.

Rufus unfastened her gown before gently tugging down the loosened material to reveal her breasts covered only by the thinness of her chemise. “You are so beautiful, Anna,” he groaned as he revealed her rose-coloured nipples. “Do they ache, Anna?” He ran his fingertips across the tips. “Are they hot and aching for me to kiss them?” he encouraged raspily even as he lowered his head and took a rosy nipple into the heat of his mouth.

Anna was so awash with sensation, in the unmistakeable knowledge of Rufus’s passion, and the desire he voiced for her so fiercely, she was unable to do anything more than arch her back as she groaned her surrender and gave herself up completely to the pleasure of being in his arms.

“You are so lovely,” he murmured as the heat of his mouth moved to pay homage to her other breast. “So very lovely,” he groaned before suckling the roused nipple deep into his mouth, lathing with his tongue, biting gently with sharp and stimulating teeth.

Rufus had never felt so aroused as he did making love to Anna. So deeply inflamed that he wanted to give her pleasure, to pleasure her, until she belonged to him completely. Anna. His Anna, whether she knew it yet or not.

He was moved by her beauty, entertained by her feistiness, enthralled with her delicious body. Her breasts were perfect, the taste of her nipples as addictive as her mouth, the skin of her thighs so silky soft as he caressed their length beneath her gown, between her thighs so wet and inviting as he touched her through the slit in her drawers.

“Rufus?” she gasped as he eased a finger inside the moist heat of her.

“Let me, love,” he encouraged softly as he eased a second finger inside her, her inner muscles grasping his fingers, at the same time as he pressed his thumb rhythmically against her pulsing core.

Rufus suckled one of her nipples deeply into his mouth as he continued to stroke his fingers inside her, Anna arching against him as his thumb pressed harder against her.

His.

This woman was his.

“Rufus!” Anna cried out at the unimagined pleasure coursing wildly through every inch of her body, her hands clinging on to the muscled hardness of Rufus’s shoulders as she arched up into his invading fingers. She needed— Oh goodness, she needed—

“Let go for me, Anna!” Rufus encouraged gruffly.

“I do not know how!” She shook her head from side to side as the pleasure seemed almost too much to bear.

“Let go, love,” he groaned harshly. “Just let go!”

Anna gave another gasp as his words triggered something deep inside her and her pleasure washed over her in wave after wave of ecstasy such as Anna had never thought of or imagined in her wildest daydreams.

His, Rufus groaned in satisfaction, unrelenting as he rode Anna’s climax to the very end of her pleasure. Until she lay limp and gasping in his arms, her eyes fever bright as she looked up at him in wonder.

“Tell me you want me too, Anna,” Rufus urged hotly; his arousal a painful ache between his thighs. “Tell me I can have all of you.”

“Rufus?” She looked up at him dazedly, uncomprehending.

“There is no one here to stop us,” he explained heatedly. “Watkins will not return until he is called for, and your brother is occupied in the village.”

Anna was breathing hard as she slowly came back to her senses and realised the intimacies she had allowed to happen. Exactly what her wanton hungers, her desire for excitement and adventure, had led her into doing.

And how much Rufus would despise her once he also came back to his senses.

Her face paled even as she pulled herself out of his arms before moving quickly down to the bottom of the chaise and getting back onto her feet, her legs trembling as she turned away from him to pull her chemise and gown up over her swollen breasts.

What had she done? How could she have allowed this to happen?

To have allowed Rufus to touch her so intimately, and the building of that unbearable pleasure, so quickly followed by the release she could still feel between her thighs.

She had not realised when she gave herself up to his desire for her. Had not known where, or how far, her own passions would take her.

It was too much.

Rufus was too much.

He was also, no matter how much he might try to dismiss it, the Duke of Northamptonshire. And Anna would never be any more to him than another conquest. A woman to amuse him while he was in Banbury, so far away from the sophisticated amusements and equally sophisticated women he usually enjoyed in London.

She was merely an amusement to him.

A diversion, nothing more.

Anna had never met a man like Rufus before. A man so handsome. So self-assured. So intelligent. So wickedly amusing. So achingly, sinfully attractive.

She had realised the moment she’d seen him again that night, and the idea had grown as the two of them talked, as he made such delicious love to her just now, that somehow over the past six days her fascination with him had turned to budding love. A love that had burst into full bloom tonight. She was in love with Rufus Drake, the wickedly handsome Duke of Northamptonshire.

The fact that her heart was now breaking at that knowledge, as she now felt broken, would be of no interest to him. As she would be of no interest to him once he was back amongst his sophisticated London friends.

And she would not, could not, allow him to see, or even guess, her feelings for him, and the heartbreak of loving him. That would be the ultimate humiliation.

She raised her chin determinedly. “I had thought the droit du seigneur to have been abandoned several centuries ago?”

Rufus was taken aback. “You misunderstand my intentions totally.”

“I do not think so,” Anna murmured dismissively. “You invited my brother and me to dine here with you this evening, and then immediately proceeded to kiss me, to make love to me, the moment he was out of the room. You then pointed out that there is no one here to stop your attentions. And you— I— I am so ashamed!” She buried her face in her hands.

Rufus had done all of those things, but only because he had been so happy to be alone with Anna again. To be able to hold her. To make love to her.

He had obviously frightened her with the intensity of that lovemaking.

These possessive feelings were utterly new to him. Unprecedented. But that did not mean Rufus was not completely aware of what they were. What they meant to him. What Anna meant to him.

He had awoken every day these past six days full of anticipation, buoyant in the knowledge that he might see her again. Not only had he never before met a woman he desired as much as he did her, but he admired her intelligence, her sense of adventure, that wild imagination that had come up with the story of the kitten up in the tree. Anna made him laugh, at himself as much as anything else, and not in the bored or jaded way of his London friends.

She was also wise beyond her years in the way in which she had understood and soothed his feelings at the churchyard this morning. She’d helped him to see that life must be grasped, seized, before it was too late.

“Contrary to what you may think of me, Your Grace, I am not one of your London trollops!” Anna snapped as she turned her back on him, obviously waiting for him to refasten her gown.

Rufus frowned as he slowly refastened the tiny buttons. “I would never think that of you…”

“Nor,” she continued firmly as she stepped away from him, “am I a country bumpkin, who would feel so flattered and grateful for the attentions of a duke, that she would simply throw herself down and worship at your feet.”

This was why he wanted her, Rufus acknowledged ruefully. Because Anna, and damn it she would be his Anna, had shown him again this evening that she was not in the least in awe of him or his title. Instead she had treated him as if he were just the wicked gentleman she had met in the woods six days ago.

Rufus could not hold back a smile. “I believe I had in mind another part of my anatomy entirely which you might go down upon your knees and worship.”

She drew in an indignant breath, even as her gaze moved to the front of his black pantaloons, where the evidence of his arousal was unmistakeable.

Her mouth firmed as she glared at him. “You, sir, are a cad. A lecher. A despoiler of innocents— I fail to see what is so amusing!” she snapped as he began to laugh.

“Ye gods, Anna,” Rufus continued to chuckle. “I cannot wait to take you to London and introduce you to my friends, and most especially to my cousin Zachary!” He had no doubts that his cousin, of all the Dangerous Dukes, would understand exactly why and how this young woman had burrowed so deeply beneath Rufus’s skin in so short a time.

Anna was a prize beyond any jewels, or any amount of money, was beyond freedom, beyond anything that Rufus had previously so highly valued in his life.

“What are you suggesting?” Anna looked at him in alarm. “That you would like to take me to London with you when you leave so that the two of you might share me in your bed?”

“Absolutely not,” Rufus’s humour faded as quickly as it had arisen, his expression grim as he stepped forward determinedly before once again placing his fingers beneath her chin and tilting her face up towards his, his lids narrowed in warning. “You will never be with any other man, Anna. No other man will ever be allowed to see your nakedness but me. Do you understand me?”

No, Anna did not understand him at all. She knew she had been playing with fire when she had thought him merely a gentleman passing through the area the day they met in the woods. She had behaved even more recklessly this evening, when her longings had allowed him to make love to her so pleasurably.

But this man, the arrogant words of this duke, were surely beyond her comprehension.

Except he seemed to be suggesting he would happily take her back to London with him when he went. As his mistress?

And perhaps she deserved such disrespect from him. Perhaps her shameful actions this evening had led him to assume, to believe, that she would accept such a role in his life.

“I understand you perfectly,” she nodded abruptly.

Rufus looked down at her searchingly. “Do you?”

“Oh yes,” Anna acknowledged dully. “I do not believe I will wait for your carriage to take me home. It is a warm and sunny evening, and I would prefer to walk.”

“Anna—”

“Please do not say anything more to me this evening, Rufus.”

Tears stung her eyes as she looked at him pleadingly. “I could not bear it.”

Rufus frowned as he saw how deeply upset Anna was. No doubt because of their lovemaking earlier; he should not have allowed things to go as far as they had. Except he could not regret having touched and caressed her, having made love to her. Or deny the need he felt to caress and make love to her again as soon as was possible.

But not like this. Not with these misunderstandings standing between them.

He nodded abrupt acceptance of her decision to leave. “You will return to the parsonage in my carriage, as I assured your brother that you would.” He rang for Watkins. “I will only agree not to accompany you,” he continued as she seemed about to protest yet again, “on the condition you agree to meet me at two of the clock tomorrow afternoon at our pond—”

“No.”

“Yes, Anna.” Rufus knew that his own eyes must be as fiercely determined as her own.

He may not have wanted to become a duke, but there was no denying he was one, and in this particular instance, he intended to behave like one.

“Be there at two of the clock, Anna, unless you wish for your brother to know the extent of our friendship,” Rufus’s tone was soft, but nevertheless brooked no further argument.

Watkins knocked quietly on the door before entering the room. Rufus issued his instructions for the carriage, and waited for the other man to leave before turning back to Anna.

She frowned. “You would not really do that?”

No, of course Rufus would not do that, but he was determined that Anna would meet with him tomorrow. “Do not press me, Anna,” he advised gently.

She looked at him searchingly for several long seconds before her lashes lowered and she gave a slight nod of acceptance. “Very well. I will meet you at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”

“At our pond,” he pressed.

“At the pond,” she corrected purposefully.

Rufus stood at the window and watched a few minutes later as Anna hurried down the front steps of the house before stepping quickly up into his carriage.

As if the Hounds of Hell were at her heels.

Or the man who was determined to have her for his own.

Chapter Seven

The challenging expression on Anna’s face when the two of them met at the pond the following day was not at all encouraging to Rufus in regard to his hopes of a successful outcome to the conversation to come.

He felt a clenching in his chest at how distant Anna seemed to him today, not in proximity, but in every other way that mattered. She looked beautiful of course, ethereally so, in a cream gown with her curls pure gold beneath the sun’s rays. But her eyes were a dark and wary blue in the pallor of her face as she looked up at him, her mouth unsmiling.

She set her chin stubbornly. “Could we please get this conversation over with as quickly as possible?” her voice was brittle, as breakable as she appeared to be. “I have visits to make in the village this afternoon on my brother’s behalf.”

Rufus eyed her quizzically. “Why are you lying to me again, Anna?”

Colour suffused her cheeks. “I am not.”

“Yes, I am afraid you are,” Rufus rebuked gently as he crossed the short distance between them to stand directly in front of her. “My conversation this morning with your brother would have ensured he did not send you off on errands today.”

“You have spoken to Mark?” she gasped, the colour once again draining from her cheeks. “But…I did not see you at the parsonage.”

“We met at the church.”

“Why?” Anna gave a pained groan. “What did you say to him? Did you complain of my behaviour yesterday evening? Tell him of my wantonness?” Tears stung her eyes at thoughts of that humiliation.

The same tears that had been falling down Anna’s cheeks for all of the night and most of this morning. Tears of humiliation for her wanton behaviour yesterday evening. The tears of knowing she was in love with a man who would never, could never, return that love.

Anna had thought her life empty before this, her heart, her soul, hungering for something. But the thought of Rufus soon returning to London, of not seeing so much as a glimpse of him again for months, possibly years, filled her heart with a despair she could never have imagined.

To the point she had even considered accepting his offer that she return to London with him and become his mistress, for however long such arrangements lasted.

Only to sob even harder as she was forced to dismiss such a notion; such an arrangement may bring her some measure of happiness for a short time, but she could never bring such disgrace upon her brother by behaving in such a scandalous manner. And she could not avoid the pain that the end of such an alliance would bring.

No, the only course left open to her was to accept there was no future for herself with a man like Rufus, and to behave with all the dignity her deceased mother and father would have expected from her.

“I would not break my word to you in that way, Anna,” Rufus reassured. “Nor do I have any complaints about your behaviour yesterday evening. On the contrary.”

“Could we please not discuss the events of yesterday evening?” She turned sharply away from him, her lace-gloved hands tightly clasped together in front of her. “It is enough for us both to know it was a mistake. An aberration, brought about by…by…”

“Brought about by what, Anna?” Rufus prompted softly.

She gave an agitated shake of her head. “You are the more experienced one of us, so perhaps you will tell me what it was brought about by?”

His expression gentled. “Desire. Arousal. Love.”

“I do not lo—” Anna stopped as she realised she was about to tell him yet another lie.

She did love Rufus. So very, very much. So much that it was breaking her heart to be with him again, just to be near him and know he could never be hers.

Rufus stepped forward to place his hands upon the slenderness of Anna’s shoulders, deeply distressed at seeing her so upset. “Anna, the only reason I spoke with your brother this morning was because I needed to ask his permission before I dare ask you to marry me.”

“No! No, no, no!” she cried emotionally as the tears cascaded unchecked down the paleness of her cheeks. “I cannot— I will not allow you to. Your honour is not in question, Rufus,” she assured him in a throaty voice. “I am the one who was at fault yesterday evening. I am the one who allowed you to make love to me. No man could have refused what I so freely offered. You should not now feel— I will not hear of your offering to marry me because of my wantonness.” She began to cry in earnest.

Rufus’s heart had plummeted as Anna protested so vehemently against the idea of marrying him, only to feel ravaged as she offered up words of self-condemnation.

His heart now felt as if it were being wrenched from his chest as he witnessed the heartbreak of her tears.

He enfolded her tightly in his arms, his cheek resting against the silky softness of her golden curls. “I know we have not known each other for long, Anna, and that you will need time to feel for me as I do for you, but— Do you believe in love at first sight, Anna?” he prompted. “Do you believe it is possible to look at a person and know, instinctively know, that you are meant to be with that person for the rest of your life?”

Anna stilled in his arms before slowly pulling back to look up at him searchingly. “I do not— Are you saying that is what has happened to you? That you love me?”

“Oh yes,” Rufus confirmed. “I admit I have spent all my adult life in total ignorance of the emotion, which is perhaps why I did not immediately recognise it for what it was, and instead believed it to be desire rather than love. But I am in no doubts now of my feelings, Anna. I cannot live without you by my side.” He had known it three days ago when the two of them had spoken in the churchyard. Had been totally convinced of it when they’d made love together last night. “I spoke to your brother this morning, before discussing it with you, only because it was the right thing to do, the gentlemanly thing to do.” He reached up to cradle each side of her face, his eyes gazing unwaveringly into hers as his thumbs stroked the tears from her cheeks. “I am deeply in love with you, Anna Juliet Bishop, and will always be so. And I would deem it an honour, a privilege, if you would one day consider becoming my wife.”

Anna gazed up at him in stunned disbelief, never having thought to hear such words from Rufus. From her wicked duke. From the sinful gentleman she had last night realised she loved with all her heart.

All of those reasons caused her doubts to linger. “Are you sure, Rufus?” She gave a shake of her head. “I would not want you to feel obligated into offering me marriage.”

“I have never allowed feelings of obligation to determine my actions, Anna,” he assured her dryly. “And certainly not when it comes to the taking of a wife!” he added teasingly before sobering again. “I admit to having behaved something of a rake these past ten or twelve years, but that is because I did not know otherwise. As I tried to explain this to you on Saturday morning at the church. You have changed me, Anna,” he assured earnestly. “My love for you has changed me, so much so that I no longer want any other woman but you. And I know that I never will. Will you at least give me leave to court you, Anna? To woo you, so that perhaps one day you might learn to feel that same love for me?”

Anna felt as if her heart had swollen with so much emotion it might burst out of her chest at any moment.

Rufus had told her he loved her!

More than that, he had said he did not feel obligated to offer for her but that he wished to marry her.

That he wanted to make her his forever beloved wife.

By loving her, by wishing to marry her, to be with her forever, Rufus offered her the freedom she had so restlessly hungered for all her life.

What better freedom was there than to love and be loved? To be with the man she loved, and who loved her? Forever.

“I already love you, Rufus.” Anna knew her face glowed as she gazed up at him with all of that love shining in her eyes.

“You do?” His eyes darkened with emotion as he looked down at her searchingly. “Can you possibly? Is it really possible you are in love with me, my darling Anna?” He looked uncharacteristically uncertain.

An uncertainty that caused Anna’s heart to ache. “I love you so very much. From that first moment, too, I believe. I just— I did not believe that you could ever feel the same way about someone like me.”

“There is no one else like you, Anna!” Rufus assured gruffly as he held her fiercely in his arms. “You are unique. You are perfect. You are my beloved. Will you marry me, Anna, and make me the happiest man in the world? Will you be my duchess? The mother of our children?”

Anna’s heart leapt at the realisation that if she said yes to his marriage proposal she would not only become Rufus’s wife but also a duchess. “I am only the daughter of a parson.” She reminded him then.

“And I am only a duke because of tragic family losses and being the unfortunate third grandson of a duke,” Rufus assured wryly. “Can you not see how perfect we are for each other, Anna—the unexpected duke and the parson’s daughter!” He looked almost boyish as he grinned down at her.

She winced. “It sounds like the title of a melodrama.”

“To me it sounds like heaven,” Rufus contradicted huskily. “Say yes, Anna. Say yes, and we shall have your brother marry us as soon as is possible, and then we shall leave England and go on an extended honeymoon. Would you like that, Anna?” he prompted as he saw the excitement glowing in her eyes. “Shall we leave England for a while and travel together, not to the Continent, because it is not safe as yet, but to all the other exotic places that so call to your heart?”

Rufus really did know her, Anna acknowledged wonderingly. He knew her and what was in her heart.

“I would be just as happy to remain here, or to go to London. As long as I am with you it does not matter where we are,” she assured, knowing it was true, and that Rufus meant more to her than anything else. That he was her dream, loving him was her true freedom, and marriage to him would be the biggest adventure.

“We will travel,” Rufus insisted. “I am looking forward to sharing all the wonders of the world with you. To seeing them through your beautiful eyes. I love you so much, Anna Juliet. So very, very much,” he added fiercely.

“I love you too, Rufus,” she answered him just as earnestly.

“Then marry me and make me the happiest of men.”

“As you will make me the happiest of women.”

Anna had no doubts it was a vow, and a love, they would both treasure for the rest of their hopefully long lives together.

* * *

They made their official vows before family, friends and God just weeks later, Anna somewhat overwhelmed by meeting so many titled members of the ton, most especially the five Dangerous Dukes, and several of their wives, who were all Rufus’s closest friends.

But she need not have worried, the three duchesses could not have been more welcoming, and the dukes were all exceedingly charming to her. Apart from Griffin Stone, Duke of Rotherham, who was pleasant enough, but seemed to be of a naturally taciturn disposition.

“Do you think he is leaving early because he disapproves of me?” Anna whispered to her new husband after Rotherham had taken his leave to depart for his estate in Lancashire.

“I would not care if he did,” Rufus assured her with his usual arrogance. “But I am sure he does approve of you, my darling.” He kissed her soundly in front of all their wedding guests. “Rotherham is… It is only that weddings are not his favourite occasions.” He grimaced.

Rufus had told Anna all there was to know about him. His past, his present, their future. And she loved him still, in spite of it.

But there was no reason for him to talk on their wedding day of his and the other Dangerous Dukes’ work for the Crown. No need to explain that Griffin was returning to his estate because they had received word that Jacob Harker, Rufus’s errant estate manager, had possibly been seen in Lancashire.

“Oh?” Anna looked up at him enquiringly.

“Never mind your curiosity about Griffin.” Rufus tapped her lightly on her nose. “You shall have your hands far too full of your husband, and our happiness together for many years to come, to be able to indulge your inquisitive nature in regard to Rotherham. Besides which, he would not thank you for it,” he added with certainty.

“Really, husband?” Anna looked up at him mischievously. “And how shall we occupy ourselves for these many years to come?”

Rufus grinned down at her. “I am sure we shall think of something.”

The two of them laughed softly together, the promise of a long and happy life together ahead of them. The adventure they had both longed for and now found in each other.

* * * * *

Griffin Stone: Duke of Decadence

Carole Mortimer

Who: Griffin Stone, tenth Duke of Rotherham.

What: A disheveled woman who is nearly trampled by his carriage horses.

When: Late one summer night while the Duke is in pursuit of would-be assassins.

Why: When the mysterious beauty’s identity is revealed as Lady Beatrix Stanton, Griffin realizes it’s she who holds the key to everything. Bea’s memory must be unlocked, but with every second in her presence inflaming Griffin’s desire, keeping his mind on the task ahead proves nigh on impossible!

To all of you for loving the Dangerous Dukes as much as I do!

Chapter One

July 1815, Lancashire, England.

‘What the—?’ Griffin Stone, the tenth Duke of Rotherham, pulled sharply on the reins of his perfectly matched greys as a ghostly white figure ran out of the darkness directly in front of his swiftly travelling phaeton.

Despite his concerted efforts to avoid a collision, the ethereal figure barely missed being stomped on by the high-stepping and deadly hooves, but was not so fortunate when it came to the back offside wheel of the carriage.

Griffin winced as he heard rather than saw that collision, all of his attention centred on bringing the greys to a stop before he was able to jump down from the carriage and run quickly round to the back of the vehicle.

There was only the almost full moon overhead for illumination, but nevertheless Griffin was able to locate where the white figure lay a short distance away.

An unmoving and ghostly shape was lying face down in the dirt.

Two strides of his long legs brought him to the utterly still figure, where he crouched down on his haunches. Griffin could see that the person was female; long dark hair fell across her face and cascaded loosely down the length of her spine, and she was wearing what, to him, looked suspiciously like a voluminous white nightgown, her feet bare.

He glanced about them in confusion; this private way through Shrawley Woods was barely more than a rutted track, and as far as he was aware there were no houses in the immediate vicinity. In fact, Griffin was very aware as the surrounding woods and the land for several miles about them formed part of his principal ducal estate.

It made no sense that this woman was roaming about his woods wearing only her nightgown.

He placed his fingers about her wrist, with the intention of checking for a pulse, only to jerk back as she unexpectedly gave a pained groan the moment his fingers touched her bared flesh. It let him know she was at least still alive, even if the sticky substance he could feel on his fingertips showed she had sustained an injury of some kind.

Griffin took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood from his hand before reaching out to gently stroke the long dark hair from over her face, revealing it as a deathly pale oval in the moonlight.

‘Can you hear me?’ His voice was gruff, no doubt from the scare he had received when she’d run out in front of his carriage.

Shrawley Woods was dense, and this rarely used track was barely navigable in full daylight; Griffin had only decided to press on in the darkness towards Stonehurst Park, just a mile away, because he had played in these woods constantly as a child and knew his way blindfolded.

There had been no reason, at eleven o’clock at night, for Griffin to take into account that there would be someone else in these woods. A poacher would certainly have known his way about in a way this barely clothed female obviously did not.

‘Can you tell me where you are injured so that I can be sure not to hurt you again?’ Griffin prompted, his frown darkening when he received no answer, and was forced to accept that she had once again slipped into unconsciousness.

Griffin made his next decision with the sharp precision for which he had been known in the army. It was late at night, full dark, no one had yet come crashing through the woods in pursuit of this woman, and, whoever she might be, she was obviously in need of urgent medical attention.

Consequently there was only one decision he could make, and that was to place her in the phaeton and continue on with the rest of his journey to Stonehurst Park. Once there they would no longer be in darkness, and he could ascertain her injuries more accurately, after which a doctor could be sent for. Explanations for her state of undress, and her mad flight through the woods, could come later.

Griffin straightened to take off his driving coat and lay it gently across her before scooping her carefully up into his arms.

She weighed no more than a child, her long hair cascading over his arm, her face all pale and dark hollows in the moonlight. He rested her head more comfortably against his shoulder.

She was young and very slender. Too slender. The weight of her long hair seemed almost too much for the slender fragility of her neck to support.

She made no sound as he lifted her up onto the seat of his carriage, nor when he wrapped his coat more securely about her. He took up the reins once again and moved the greys on more slowly than before in an effort not to jolt his injured passenger unnecessarily.

His decision to come to his estate in Lancashire had been forced upon him by circumstances. The open war against Napoleon was now over, thank goodness, but Griffin, and several of his close friends, who also bore the title of Duke and were known collectively as the Dangerous Dukes, all knew, better than most, that there was still a silent, private war to be fought against the defeated emperor and his fanatical followers.

Just a week ago the Dangerous Dukes had helped foil an assassination plot to eliminate their own Prince Regent, along with the other leaders of the alliance. The plan being to ensure Napoleon’s victorious return to Paris, while chaos ruled in those other countries.

A Frenchman, André Rousseau, since apprehended and killed by one of the Dangerous Dukes, had previously spent a year in England, secretly persuading men and women who worked in the households of England’s politicians and peers to Napoleon’s cause. Of which there were many; so many families in England had French relatives.

Many of the perpetrators of that plot had since been either killed or incarcerated, but there remained several who were unaccounted for. It was rumoured that those remaining followed the orders of an as yet unknown leader.

Griffin was on his way to the ducal estates he had not visited for some years, because the Dukes had received word that one of the traitors, Jacob Harker, who might know the identity of this mysterious leader, had been sighted in the vicinity.

It just so happened that three of the Dangerous Dukes had married in recent weeks, and a fourth wed just a week ago, on the very day Griffin had set out for his estate in Lancashire. With all of his friends being so pleasurably occupied, it had been left to him to pursue the rumour of the sighting of Harker.

Running a young woman down in his carriage, in the dark of night, had not been part of Griffin’s immediate plans.

* * *

She hurt.

Every part of her was in agony and aching as she attempted to move her legs.

A wave of pain that swelled from her toes to the top of her head.

Had she fallen?

Been involved in an accident of some kind?

‘Would you care for a drink of water?’

She stilled at the sound of a cultured male voice, hardly daring to breathe as she tried, and failed, to recall if she recognised the owner of it before she attempted to open her eyes.

Panic set in as she realised that he was a stranger to her.

‘There is no reason to be alarmed,’ Griffin assured her firmly as the young woman in the bed finally opened panicked eyes—eyes that he could now see were the dark blue of midnight, and surrounded by thick lashes that were very black against the pallor of a face that appeared far too thin—and turned to look at him as he sat beside the bed in a chair that was uncomfortably small for his large frame.

She, in comparison, made barely an outline beneath the covers of the bed in his best guest bedchamber at Stonehurst Park, her abundance of long dark hair appearing even blacker against the white satin-and-lace pillows upon which her head lay, her face so incredibly pale.

‘I assure you I do not mean you any harm,’ he added firmly. He was well aware of the effect his five inches over six feet in height, and his broad and muscled body, had upon ladies as delicate as this one. ‘I am sure you will feel better if you drink a little water.’

Griffin turned to the bedside table and poured some into a glass. He placed a hand gently beneath her nape to ease up her head and held the glass to her lips until she had drunk down several sips, aware as he did that those dark blue eyes remained fixed on his every move.

Tears now filled them as her head dropped back onto the pillows. ‘I—’ She gave a shake of her head, only to wince as even that slight movement obviously caused her pain. She ran her moistened tongue over her lips before speaking again. ‘You are very kind.’

Griffin frowned darkly as he turned to place the glass back on the bedside table, hardening his heart against the sight of those tears until he knew more about the circumstances behind this young woman’s flight through his woods. His years as an agent for the Crown had left him suspicious of almost everybody.

And women, as he knew only too well, were apt to use tears as their choice of weapon.

‘Who are you?’

It was a reasonable question, Griffin supposed, in the circumstances. And yet he could not help but think he should be the one asking that.

When they’d arrived at Stonehurst late last night he had left the care of his carriage and horses to his head groom, before hurriedly taking her into his arms and carrying her up the steps into the house. Once inside he had hurried her up to the bedchambers, much to the open-mouthed surprise of his butler, Pelham.

Rather than send for a doctor straight away Griffin had taken a few moments to assess the condition of the young woman himself. After all, until he knew the reason for her flight through the woods it might be prudent to ask her some questions. Was she in some sort of danger?

Griffin had been grateful for his caution once he had placed his burden carefully down atop the bedcovers and gently folded back the many capes of his topcoat.

As he had thought, the woman was young, possibly eighteen, or at the most twenty, and her heart-shaped face was delicately lovely. She had perfectly arched eyebrows beneath a smooth brow, though the slight hollowness to her cheeks possibly spoke of a deprivation of food. Her nose was small and straight, her mouth a pale pink, the top lip slightly fuller than the bottom, her chin softly curved.

She had been wearing a filthy white cotton nightgown over her slender curves, revealing feet that were both dirty and lacerated beneath its bloodied ankle length. A result, he was sure, that she’d begun her flight shoeless.

There had also already been a sizeable lump and bruising already appearing upon her right temple, no doubt from her collision with his carriage.

But it was her other injuries, injuries that Griffin knew could not possibly have been caused by that collision, which had caused him to draw in a shocked and hissing breath.

The blood he had felt on his fingers earlier came from the raw chafing about both her wrists and ankles. She’d obviously been restrained by tight ropes for some time before her flight through his woods.

There were any number of explanations as to why she’d been restrained, of course, and not all of them were necessarily sinister.

Though he did not favour the practice himself, he was nevertheless aware that some men liked to secure a woman to the bed—as some women enjoyed being secured!—during love play.

There was also the possibility that this young woman was insane, and had been restrained for her own safety as well as that of others.

The final possibility, and perhaps the most likely, was that she had been restrained against her will.

Until such a time as Griffin established which explanation it was he’d decided that no one in his household, or outside it, was to be allowed to talk to her but himself.

His decision made, Griffin had immediately instructed the hovering Pelham to bring him hot water and towels, and to appropriate a clean nightgown from one of the maids. After all, there had been nothing to stop Griffin making his uninvited guest at least a little more comfortable than she was at present.

Still, he had been deeply shocked, once he had used his knife to cut the dirty and bloodied nightgown away from her body, to discover many bruises, both old and new, concealed beneath.

There had been no visible marks on her face, apart from the bruise on her temple, but there had been multiple purple and black bruises covering her body, with other, older bruises having faded to yellow. The ridge of her spine had shown through distinctly against that bruised skin as evidence that this woman had not only been repeatedly kicked and or beaten, but that she had also been starved, possibly for some days if not weeks, of more than the food and water necessary to keep her alive.

If that was the case, Griffin was determined to know exactly who was responsible for having exerted such cruelty on this fragile and beautiful young woman, and why.

After assuring she was as comfortable as was possible, Griffin had then gone quickly to his own room to bathe the travel dust from his own body, before changing into clean clothes and returning to spend the night in the chair at her bedside. He’d meant to be at her side when she woke.

If she woke.

She had given several groans of protest as Griffin had bathed the dirt from her wrists, ankles and feet, before applying a soothing salve and bandages, her feet very dirty and badly cut from running outdoors without shoes, and also in need of the application of the healing salve. Otherwise she had remained worryingly quiet and still for the rest of the night.

Griffin, on the other hand, had had plenty of time in which to consider his own actions.

Obviously he could not have left this young woman in the woods, least of all because he was responsible for having rendered her unconscious in the first place. But the uncertainty of who she was and the reasons for her imprisonment and escape meant the ramifications for keeping her here could be far-reaching.

Not that he gave a damn about that; Griffin answered only to the Crown and to God, and he doubted the former had any interest in her, and for the moment—and obviously for some days or weeks previously!—the second seemed to have deserted her.

Consequently Griffin now had the responsibility of her until she woke and was able to tell him the circumstances of her injuries.

Just a few minutes ago Griffin had seen her eyes moving beneath her translucent lids, and her dark lashes flutter against the pallor of her cheeks, as evidence that she was finally regaining consciousness. And her voice, when she had spoken to him at last, had at least answered one of his many questions; her accent was refined rather than of the local brogue, and her manner was also that of a polite young lady.

‘I am Griffin Stone, the Duke of Rotherham.’ He gave a curt inclination of his head as he answered her question. ‘And we are both at Stonehurst Park, my ducal estate in Lancashire.’ He frowned as she made no effort to reciprocate. ‘And you are?’

And she was...?

Panic once again assailed her as she sought, and failed, to recall her own name. To recall anything at all from before she had opened her eyes a few minutes ago and seen the imposing gentleman seated at her bedside in a bedchamber that was as unfamiliar to her as the man himself.

The Duke of Rotherham.

Even seated he was a frighteningly large man, with fashionably overlong black hair, and impossibly wide shoulders and chest. He was dressed in a perfectly tailored black superfine over a silver waistcoat and white linen, and his thighs and legs were powerfully muscled in grey pantaloons above brown-topped Hessians.

But it was his face, showing that refinement of feature and an expression of aloof disdain, surely brought about only by generations of fine breeding, which held her mesmerised. He had a high intelligent brow with perfectly arched eyebrows over piercingly cold silver-grey eyes. His nose was long and aquiline between high cheekbones, and he’d sculptured unsmiling lips above an arrogantly determined jaw.

He was an intimidating and grimly intense gentleman, with a haughty aloofness that spoke of an innate, even arrogant, confidence. Whereas she...

Her lips felt suddenly numb, and the bedroom began to sway and dip in front of her eyes.

‘You must stay awake!’ The Duke rose sharply to his feet so that he could take a firm grip of her shoulders, his hold easing slightly only as she gave a low groan of pain. ‘I apologise if I caused you discomfort.’ He frowned darkly. ‘But I really cannot allow you to fall asleep again until I am sure you are in your right mind. So far I have resisted calling the doctor but I fear that may have been unwise.’

‘No!’ she protested sharply. ‘Do not call anyone! Please do not,’ she protested brokenly, her fingers now clinging to the sleeves of his jacket as she looked up at him pleadingly.

Griffin frowned his displeasure, not in the least reassured by her responses so far. She seemed incapable of answering the simplest of questions and had now become almost hysterical at his having mentioned sending for the doctor. Had last night’s bump to the head caused some sort of trauma to the mind? Or had her mind been affected before?

Griffin knew the English asylums for housing those pitiful creatures were basic at best, and bestial at worst, and tended to attract as warders those members of society least suited to the care of those who were most vulnerable. Admittedly, some of the insane could be violent themselves, but Griffin sincerely doubted that was true in the case of this young woman. She was surely too tiny and slender to be of much danger to others? Unless her jailers had feared self-harm, of course.

Distasteful as that thought might be, Griffin could not deny that it was one explanation for both the bruises on her body, and those marks of restraint.

Except, to his certain knowledge, there was no asylum for the mentally insane situated within fifty miles of Stonehurst Park.

‘At least tell me your name,’ he said again, more gently this time, for fear of alarming her further.

‘I cannot.’ The tears now flooded and overflowed, running unchecked down her cheeks and dampening her hair.

Griffin frowned his frustration, with both her tears and her answer.

He was well aware that women cried for many reasons. With pain. In fear. Emotional distress. And to divert and mislead.

And in this instance, it could be being used as a way of not answering his questions at all!

But perhaps he was being unfair and she was just too frightened to answer him truthfully? Fearful of being returned to the place where she had been so cruelly treated?

It would be wrong of him to judge until he knew all the circumstances.

‘Are you at least able to tell me why you were running through the Shrawley Woods in the dead of night wearing only your nightclothes?’ he urged softly. He was not averse to using his height and size to intimidate a man, but knew only too well how easily those two things together could frighten a vulnerable woman.

‘No!’ Her eyes had widened in alarm, as if she had no previous knowledge of having run through the woods.

Griffin placed a gentle finger against one of her bandaged wrists. ‘Or how you received these injuries?’

She looked blankly down at those bandages. ‘I— No,’ she repeated emotionally.

Griffin’s frustration heightened as he rose restlessly to his feet before crossing the room to where the early morning sun shone brightly through the windows of the bedchamber, the curtains having remained undrawn the night before.

The room faced towards the back of the house, and outside he could see the stirrings of the morning: maids returning to the house with pails of milk, grooms busy in the stables, feeding and exercising the horses, several estate workers already tending to the crops in the far fields.

All normal morning occupations for the efficient running of the estate.

While inside the house all was far from normal.

There was an unknown and abused young woman lying in the bed in Griffin’s guest bedchamber, and he knew that his own mood was surly after the long days of travel, and the upset of the collision followed by lack of sleep as he’d sat at her bedside.

Griffin was a man of action.

If something needed to be done, fixed, or solved, then he did, fixed or solved it, and beware anyone who stood in his way.

But he could not do, fix or solve this dilemma without this woman’s cooperation, and, despite all his efforts to the contrary, she was too fearful at present to dare to confide so much as her name to him.

He knew from personal experience that women often found him overwhelming.

He was certainly not a man that women ever turned to for comfort or understanding. He was too physically large, too overpowering in his demeanour, for any woman to seek him out as their confidant.

No, for their comfort, for those softer emotions such as understanding and empathy, a woman of delicacy looked for a poet, not a warrior.

His wife, although dead these past six years, had been such a woman. Even after weeks of courtship and their betrothal, and despite all Griffin’s efforts to reassure her, his stature and size had continued to alarm Felicity. It had been a fear Griffin had been sure he could allay once they were married. He had been wrong.

‘I am not—I do not—I am not being deliberately disobliging or difficult, sir,’ she said pleadingly. ‘The simple truth is that I cannot tell you my name because—because I do not know it!’

A scowl appeared between Griffin’s eyes as he turned sharply round to look across at his unexpected guest, not sure that he had understood her correctly. ‘You do not know your own name, or you do not have one?’

Well, of course she must have a name!

Surely everyone had a name?

‘I have a name, I am sure, sir.’ She spoke huskily. ‘It is only—for the moment I am unable to recall it.’

And the shock of realising she did not know her own name, who she was, or how she had come to be here, or the reason for those bandages upon her wrists—indeed, anything that had happened to her before she woke up in this bed a few short minutes ago, to see this aloof and imposing stranger seated beside her—filled her with a cold and terrifying fear.

Chapter Two

The Duke remained still and unmoving as he stood in front of the window, imposing despite having fallen silent after her announcement, those chilling grey eyes now studying her through narrowed lids.

As if he was unsure as to whether or not he should believe her.

And why should he, when it was clear he had no idea as to her identity either, let alone what she had been doing in his woods?

What possible reason could she have had for doing something so shocking? What sort of woman behaved so scandalously?

The possible answer to that seemed all too obvious.

To both her and the Duke?

‘You do not believe me.’ She made a flat statement of fact rather than asked a question.

‘It is certainly not the answer I might have expected,’ he finally answered slowly.

‘What did you expect?’ She struggled to sit up higher against the pillows, once again aware that she had aches and pains over all of her body, rather than just her bandaged wrists. Indeed, she felt as if she had been trampled by several horses and run over by a carriage.

What had Griffin expected? That was a difficult question for him to answer. He had completely ruled out the possibility that she’d sustained her injuries from mutual bed sport; they were too numerous for her ever to have enjoyed or found sexual stimulation from such treatment. Nor did he particularly wish to learn that his suspicions of insanity were true. And the possibility that this young lady might have been restrained against her will, possibly by her own family, was just as abhorrent to him.

But he had never considered for a moment that she would claim to have no memory of her own name, let alone be unable to tell him where or from whom she had received her injuries.

‘You do not recall any of the events of last night?’

‘What I was doing in the woods? How I came to be here?’ She frowned. ‘No.’

‘The latter I can at least answer.’ Griffin strode forcefully across the room until he once again stood at her bedside looking down at her. ‘Unfortunately, when you ran so suddenly in front of my carriage, I was unable to avoid a collision. You sustained a bump upon your head and were rendered unconscious,’ he acknowledged reluctantly. ‘As there are no houses in the immediate area, and no one else was about, I had no choice but to bring you directly here to my own home.’

Then she really had been trampled by horses and run over by a carriage.

‘As my actions last night gave every appearance of my having known who I was before I sustained a bump on the head from the collision with your carriage, is it not logical to assume that it was that collision that is now responsible for my loss of memory?’ She eyed him hopefully.

It was logical, Griffin acknowledged grudgingly, at the same time as he appreciated her powers of deduction in the face of what must be a very frightening experience for her. He could imagine nothing worse than awakening in a strange bedchamber with no clue to his identity.

Nor did he believe that sort of logic was something a mentally unbalanced woman would be capable of.

If indeed this young woman was being truthful about her memory loss, which Griffin was still not totally convinced about.

The previous night she had been fleeing as if for her very life, would it not be just as logical for her to now pretend to have lost her memory, as a way of avoiding the explanations he now asked for? She might fear he’d return her to her abusers.

‘Perhaps,’ he allowed coolly. ‘But that does not explain what you were doing in the woods in your nightclothes.’

‘Perhaps I was sleepwalking?’

‘You were running, not walking,’ Griffin countered dryly. ‘And you were bare of foot.’

The smoothness of her brow once again creased into a frown. ‘Would that explanation not fit in with my having been walking in my sleep?’

It would, certainly.

If she had not been running as if the devil were at her heels.

If it were not for those horrendous bruises on her body.

And if she did not bear those marks of restraint upon her wrists and ankles.

Bruises and marks of restraint that were going to make it difficult for Griffin to make enquiries about this young woman locally, without alerting the perpetrators of that abuse as to her whereabouts. Something Griffin was definitely reluctant to do until he knew more of the circumstances of her imprisonment and the reason for the abuse. Although there could surely be no excuse for the latter, whatever those circumstances?

He straightened to his fullness of height. ‘Perhaps for now we should decide upon a name we may call you by until such time as your memory returns to you?’

‘And if it does not return to me?’ There was an expression of pained bewilderment in her eyes as she looked up at him.

If her loss of memory was genuine, then the collision with his carriage was not necessarily the cause of it. Griffin had seen many soldiers after battle, mortally wounded and in pain, who had retreated to a safe place inside themselves in order to avoid any more suffering. Admittedly this young woman had not been injured in battle, nor was she mortally injured, but it was nevertheless entirely possible that the things that had been done to her were so horrendous, her mind simply refused to condone or remember them.

Griffin did not pretend to understand the workings of the human mind or emotions, but he could accept that blocking out the memory of who she even was would be one way for this young woman to deal with such painful memories.

For the moment he was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

For the moment.

‘Bella.’

She blinked her confusion. ‘Sorry?’

‘Your new name,’ Griffin said. ‘It means beautiful in Italian.’

‘I know what it means.’ She did know what it meant!

Could that possibly mean that she was of Italian descent? The hair flowing down her shoulders and over her breasts was certainly dark enough. But she did not speak English with any kind of accent that she could detect, and surely her skin was too pale for her to have originated from that sunny country?

And did the fact that the Duke had chosen that name for her mean that he thought her beautiful?

There was a blankness inside her head in answer to those first two questions, her queries seeming to slam up against a wall she could neither pass over nor through. As for the third question—

‘I speak French, German and Italian, but that does not make me any of those things.’ The Duke was obviously following her train of thought. ‘Besides, your first instinct was to speak English.’

‘You could be right, of course,’ she demurred, all the while wondering whether he did in fact find her beautiful.

What would it be like to be the recipient of the admiration of such a magnificently handsome gentleman as Griffin Stone? Or his affections. His love...

Was it possible she had ever seen such a handsome gentleman as him before today? A gentleman who was so magnificently tall, with shoulders so wide, a chest so muscled, and those lean hips and long and elegant legs? A man whose bearing must command attention wherever he might be?

He was without a doubt a gentleman whom others would know to beware of. A powerful gentleman in stature and standing. A man under whose protection she need never again know fear.

Fear of what?

For a very brief moment she had felt as if she were on the verge of something. Some knowledge. Some insight into why she had been running through the woods last night.

And now it was gone.

Slipped from her grasp.

She frowned her consternation as she slowly answered the Duke’s observation. ‘Or maybe because you spoke to me in English I replied in kind?’

This woman might not be able to answer any of Griffin’s questions but he had nevertheless learnt several things about her as the two of them had talked together.

Her voice had remained soft and refined during their conversation.

She was also clearly educated and intelligent.

And, for the moment, despite whatever experiences had reduced her to her present state, she appeared completely undaunted by either his size or his title.

Of course that could be because for now she had much more personal and pressing things to worry about, such as who she was and where she had come from!

Nevertheless, the frankness of her manner and speech towards him was a refreshing change, after so many years of the deference shown to him by other gentlemen of the ton, and the prattling awe of the ladies.

Or the total abhorrence shown to him by his own wife.

He had been but five and twenty when he and Felicity had married. He’d already inherited the title of Duke from his father. Felicity had been seven years younger than himself, and the daughter of an earl. Blonde and petite, she had been as beautiful as an angel, and she had also possessed the other necessary attributes for becoming his duchess: youth, good breeding and refinement.

Felicity might have looked and behaved like an angel but their marriage had surely been made in hell itself.

And Griffin had been thinking of that marriage far too often these past twelve hours, possibly because the delicacy of Bella’s appearance, despite their difference in colouring, was so similar to Felicity’s. ‘We have talked long enough for now, Bella,’ he dismissed harshly. ‘I will go downstairs now and organise some breakfast for you. You need to eat to regain your strength.’

‘Oh, please don’t leave! I am not sure I can be alone as yet.’ She reached up quickly with both hands and clasped hold of his much larger one, her eyes shimmering a deep blue as she looked up at him in appeal.

Griffin frowned darkly at the fear he could also see in those expressive eyes. A fear not of him—else she would not be clinging to him or appealing to him so emotionally—but certainly of everything and everyone else.

There was a certain irony to be found in the fact that this young woman was showing her implicit trust in him to protect her, when his own wife had so feared the very sight of him that she had eagerly accepted the attentions and warmth of another man.

Damn it, he would not think any more of his marriage, or Felicity!

‘I am sorry.’ Bella hastily released her grasp on the Duke’s hand as she saw the scowling displeasure on his face. ‘I did not mean to be overly familiar.’ She drew her bottom lip between her teeth as she fought back the weakness of tears.

The bed dipped as he sat down beside her, his eyes filled with compassion as he now took one of her hands gently in his. ‘It is only natural, in the circumstances, that you should feel frightened and apprehensive.’ He spoke gruffly. ‘But I assure you that you are perfectly safe here. No one would dare to harm you when you are in my home and under my protection,’ he added with that inborn arrogance of his rank.

Bella believed him. Absolutely. Without a single doubt.

Indeed, he was a gentleman whom few would ever dare to doubt, in any way. It was not only that he was so tall and powerfully built, but there was also a hard determination in those chilling grey eyes that spoke of his sincerity of purpose. If he said she would come to no harm while in his home and under his protection, then Bella had no doubt that she would not.

Her shoulders relaxed as she sank back against the pillows, her hand still resting trustingly in his. ‘Thank you.’

Griffin stared down at her uncertainly. Either she was the best actress he had ever seen and she was now attempting to hoodwink him with innocence, or she truly did believe his assurances that he would see she came to no harm while under his protection.

His response to that trust was a totally inappropriate stirring of desire.

Was that so surprising, when he had seen her naked and she was such a beautiful and appealing young woman? Her eyes that dark and entrancing blue, her lips full and enticing, and the soft curve of her tiny breasts—breasts that would surely sit snugly in the palms of his hands?—just visible above the neckline of her—

What was he thinking?

Griffin hastily released her hand as he rose abruptly to his feet to step back and away from the bed. ‘I will see that breakfast and a bath are brought up to you directly.’ He did not look at her again before turning sharply on his heel and exiting the bedchamber, closing the door firmly behind him before leaning back against it to draw deep breaths into his starved lungs.

He had just promised his protection to the woman he had named Bella, only to now realise that he, and the unexpected stirring of his long-denied physical desires, might have become her more immediate danger.

* * *

‘You are feeling more refreshed, Bella?’

Griffin knew the question was a futile one even as he asked it several hours later, as she stood in the doorway to his study. The walls were lined with the books he enjoyed sitting and reading beside the fireside in the quiet of the evening, a decanter of brandy and glass placed on the table beside him.

At least he had intended to enjoy those things the evenings he was here; the advent of his unexpected female guest meant that he might possibly have to spend those evenings entertaining her instead.

He now felt extremely weary following his days of travel and sitting at her bedside all of the previous night.

Bella appeared very pale and dignified as she remained standing in the doorway, her hair still wet from her bath, scraped back from her face and secured at her crown. She also looked somewhat nondescript in the overlarge pale blue gown borrowed from his housekeeper. It was the best Griffin had been able to do at such short notice, although he had instructed Mrs Harcourt to see about acquiring more suitable clothing for her as soon as was possible.

And if he was not mistaken, Bella had flinched the moment he’d spoken to her.

Unfortunately he knew that flinch too well; Felicity had also recoiled just so whenever he’d spoken to her, so much so that he’d eventually spoken to her as little as was possible between two people who were married to each other and often residing in the same house.

‘My feet are still too sore for me to wear the boots provided,’ Bella told him quietly, eyes downcast.

Griffin scowled slightly as he looked down at her stockinged feet. She gave all the appearance of a little girl playing dress up in those overly large clothes.

Or the waif and stray that she actually was.

He stood up impatiently from behind his desk. ‘They will heal quickly enough,’ he dismissed. ‘I asked if you are feeling refreshed after your bath,’ he questioned curtly, and then instantly cursed himself for that abruptness when Bella took a wary step back, her eyes wide blue pools of apprehension.

The fact that Griffin was accustomed to such a reaction did not make it any more pleasant for him to see it now surface in Bella. But perhaps it was to be expected, now that she was over her initial feelings of disorientation and shock in her surroundings, and had had the chance to fully observe her imposing host?

He leant back against the front of his desk in an effort to at least lessen his height. ‘Have you perhaps recalled something of what brought you to Shrawley Woods?’

Bella had been horrified when, after eating a very little of the breakfast brought up for her, she had undressed for her ablutions and seen for the first time the extent of her injuries to her body. She could only feel grateful that she’d seen fit to refuse the attendance of a maid before removing her nightgown as she stared at the naked reflection of her own body in the full-length mirror placed in the corner of the bedchamber.

She was literally covered in bruises. Some of them were obviously new, but others had faded to a sickly yellow and a dirty brown colour, and were possibly a week or so old. As for those strange abrasions, revealed when she removed the bandages from her wrist and her ankles...

How could she have come by such unsightly injuries?

She had staggered back to sit down heavily on the bed as her knees had threatened to buckle beneath her, her horrified gaze still fixed on her naked reflection in the mirror.

She had stared at her bedraggled reflection in utter bewilderment; her long dark hair had been tangled and dull about her shoulders, and there was a livid bruise on her left temple, which the Duke said she had sustained when she and his carriage had collided the night before.

But those other bruises on her body were so unsightly. Ugly!

She had realised then how stupid she had been to think that he had chosen the name Bella for her because he had thought her beautiful!

Instead it must have been his idea of a jest, a cruel joke at her expense.

‘No,’ she finally answered stiffly.

Griffin had issued instructions to all of the household staff, through Pelham, that knowledge of the female guest currently residing on the estate was not to be shared outside the house, and that any attempt to do so would result in an instant dismissal. No doubt the servants would do enough gossiping and speculating amongst themselves in that regard, without the necessity to spread the news far and wide!

Griffin, of course, if he was to solve the mystery, had no choice but to also make discreet enquiries in the immediate area for knowledge of a possible missing young lady. And he would have to do this alongside his research into the whereabouts of Harker. But he would carry out both missions with the subtlety he had learnt while gathering information secretly for the Crown. A subtlety that would no doubt surprise many who did not know that the Duke of Rotherham and his closest friends had long been engaged in such activities.

It would have been helpful if the maid who had taken up Bella’s breakfast, or any of the footmen who had later taken up her bath, had recognised Bella as belonging to the village or any of the larger households hereabouts. Unfortunately, Pelham had informed him a few minutes ago that that had not been the case.

Confirming that Griffin now had no choice but to try and identify her himself.

In the meantime he had no idea what to do with her!

‘Do you play cards?’

She eyed him quizzically as she stepped further into the room. ‘I do not believe so, no.’

Griffin watched, mesmerised, as she ran her fingers lingeringly, almost caressingly, along the shelves of books, his imagination taking flight as he wondered how those slender fingers would feel as they caressed the bareness of his shoulders, and down the tautness of his muscled stomach. How soft they would feel as they encircled the heavy weight of his arousal...

‘You obviously have a love of books,’ he bit out tensely, only to scowl darkly as she immediately snatched her hand back as if burnt before cradling it against her breasts. ‘It was an observation, Bella, not a rebuke.’ He sighed his irritation, with both his own impatience and her reaction.

‘Do not call me by that name!’ Fire briefly lit up her eyes. ‘Indeed, I believe it to have been exceedingly cruel of you to choose such a name for me!’

Griffin felt at a complete loss in the face of her upset. Three—no, it was now four—of his closest friends were either now married or about to be, and he liked their wives and betrothed well enough. But other than those four ladies the only time Griffin spent in a woman’s company nowadays was usually in the bed of one of the mistresses of the demi-monde, and then only for as long as it took to satisfy his physical needs, and with women who did not find his completely proportioned body in the least alarming. Or did not choose to show they did.

His only other knowledge of women was that of his wife, Felicity, and she had informed him on more than one occasion that he had no sensitivity, no warmth or understanding in regard to women. Not like the man she had taken as her lover. Her darling Frank, as she had called the other man so affectionately.

Damn Felicity!

If not for Harker, then Griffin would not have chosen to come back here to Stonehurst Park at all. To the place where he and Felicity had spent the first months of their married life together. He had certainly avoided the place for most of the last six years, and being back here now appeared to be bringing back all the bitter and unhappy memories of his marriage.

But if he had not come back to Stonehurst Park last night then what would have become of Bella?

Would she have perhaps stumbled and fallen in the woods in the dark, and perished without anyone being the wiser?

Would the people who had already treated her so cruelly have recaptured her and returned her to her prison?

For those reasons alone Griffin could not regret now being at Stonehurst Park.

Now if only he could fathom what he had said or done to cause Bella’s current upset.

His brow cleared as a thought occurred to him. ‘I have already asked my housekeeper to send to the nearest town for more suitable gowns and footwear for you to wear.’

‘Suitable gowns and footwear will not make a difference to how I look!’ There was still a fire in her eyes as she looked at him. ‘How could you be so cruel as to—as to taunt me so, when I am already laid low?’

Griffin gave an exasperated shake of his head. ‘I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.’

‘I am talking about this!’ She held up the bareness of her bruised arms. ‘And this!’ She pulled aside the already gaping neckline to reveal her discoloured shoulders. ‘And this!’

‘Enough! No more, Bella,’ Griffin protested as she would have lifted the hem of her gown, hopefully only to show him her abraded calves, but he could not be sure; an overabundance of modesty did not appear to be one of her attributes!

‘Bella.’ He strode slowly towards her, as if he were approaching a skittish horse rather than a beautiful young woman. ‘Bella,’ he repeated huskily as he placed a hand gently beneath her chin and raised her face so that he could look directly into her eyes. ‘Those bruises are only skin deep. They will all fade with time. And they could never hide the beauty beneath.’

Bella blinked. ‘Do you truly mean that or are you just being kind?’

‘I believe we have already established that I am cruel rather than kind.’

‘I thought—I did not know what to think.’ She now looked regretful regarding her previous outburst.

Griffin arched that aristocratic brow. ‘I am not a man who is known for his kindness. But neither am I a deceptive one,’ he added emphatically.

She gave a shake of her head. ‘When I undressed for my bath and saw my reflection in the mirror I could only think that, by giving me such a beautiful name, you must be mocking me for how unsightly I look. I truly believed that you were taunting me.’

‘I would never do such a thing to you, Bella,’ he assured her softly as he drew her into his arms. ‘Never!’

Bella breathed a contented sigh as she lay her head against the firmness of his chest, her arms moving tentatively about the leanness of his waist. He felt so big and strong against her, so solid and sure, like a mountain that would never, could never, be moved.

‘Who could have done this to me?’ She shuddered as she imagined the beatings she must have received.

Griffin’s arms tightened about Bella as he felt her tremble. ‘I do not know.’ Yet!

For he would learn who was responsible for hurting this young woman. Oh, yes, Griffin would find those responsible for her ill treatment. And when he did—

‘Do you think that—?’ She buried her head deeper into his chest. ‘Could it be that I am a married woman and that perhaps my husband might have done this to me?’

That was a possibility Griffin had not even considered in his earlier deliberations!

Perhaps because she had initially appeared so young to him.

Perhaps because she wore no wedding ring on her left hand.

And perhaps he had not thought of it because he had not wished for her to be a married woman?

But he knew better than most the embarrassment of a cuckolded husband, and Griffin’s physical response to Bella was not something he wished, or ever wanted to feel for a woman who was the wife of another man. Not even one who could have treated her so harshly.

Indeed, marriage could be the very worst outcome to Griffin’s enquiries regarding Bella; unless otherwise stated in a marriage settlement, English law still allowed that a woman’s person, and her property, came under her husband’s control upon their marriage. And, if it transpired that Bella was a married woman, then Griffin would be prevented by law from doing anything to protect her from her husband’s cruelty, despite his earlier promise to her.

His arms tightened about her. ‘Let us hope that does not prove to be the case.’

Bella had sought only comfort when she snuggled into the Duke’s arms, seeking an anchor in a world that seemed to her both stormy and precarious.

Since then she had become aware of things other than comfort.

The way Griffin’s back felt so firmly muscled and yet so warm beneath her fingers.

The way he smelled: a lemon and sandalwood cologne along with a male earthy fragrance she was sure belonged only to him.

Of what she believed must be his arousal pressing so insistently against the softness of her abdomen as he held her close.

Was it possible that this gentleman, this breathtakingly handsome Duke, this towering man of solidity and strength, was feeling that arousal for her?

Griffin became aware of just how perfectly the softness of Bella’s curves fitted against his own, much harder body. So perfectly, in fact, that she could not help but be aware of his desire for her.

He pulled back abruptly to place his hands on the tops of her arms as he put her firmly away from him, assuring himself of her balance before he released her completely and stepped back and away from her.

‘I have important estate business in need of my urgent attention this morning, so perhaps you might find some way of amusing yourself until luncheon?’ He moved to once again sit behind his desk.

He put a necessary distance between the two of them, while the desk now hid the physical evidence of his arousal.

Hell’s teeth, he was an experienced man of two and thirty, and far from being a callow youth to be so easily aroused by a woman he had just met. He was also a man who would never again allow himself to fall prey to the vulnerabilities of any woman.

That particular lesson had also been taught to him only too well. His softness of heart had been one of the reasons he had allowed Felicity to charm him into taking her as his wife. Unbeknown to him, Felicity’s father, an earl, had been in serious financial difficulties, and a duke could hardly allow his father-in-law to be carried off to debtors’ prison!

Bella felt utterly bewildered by Griffin’s sudden rejection of her.

Had she done something wrong to cause him to react in this way?

Been too clinging? Too needy of his comfort?

If she was guilty of those things then surely it had been for good reason?

She felt totally lost in a world that she did not recognise and that did not appear to recognise her. Could she be blamed for feeling that Griffin Stone, the aloof and arrogant Duke of Rotherham, was her only stability in her present state of turmoil?

Blame or otherwise, Bella now discovered that she had resources of pride that this austere Duke’s dismissal, the ugliness of her gown, or her otherwise bedraggled and bruised appearance, had not succeeded in diminishing.

Her chin rose. ‘I believe I do like books, Your Grace.’ Stiltedly she answered his earlier question. ‘Perhaps I might borrow one from this library and find somewhere quiet so that I might sit and read it?’

Griffin was feeling a little ashamed of the abruptness of his behaviour now. The more so because he had seen Bella’s brief expression of bewilderment at his harsh treatment of her.

Before it was replaced with one of proud determination.

Even wearing that overlarge and unflattering pale blue gown, her feet bare but for her stockings, and with her hair styled so unbecomingly, Bella now bore an expression of haughty disdain worthy of his severe and opinionated grandmother.

The tension eased from his shoulders at that expression, and he settled back against his leather chair. ‘If you wish it you might ask Pelham for a blanket, and then go outside and sit beneath one of the trees in the garden. Although I advise that you walk on the safety of the grass until your new footwear arrives,’ he added dryly.

Her look of hauteur wavered slightly as she now eyed him uncertainly. ‘I might go outside?’

‘You are not a prisoner here, Bella,’ Griffin answered irritably. ‘Any restrictions placed on your movements, while you are here, will only be for your own safety and never as a way of confining you,’ he added with a frown.

The slenderness of her throat moved as she swallowed before answering. ‘And what if we were never to discover who I really am?’

Then he would keep her.

And buy her dozens of pretty gowns of a fit and colour that flattered her, and the slippers to match. Then he would feed her until she burst out of those gowns and needed new ones, her cheeks rosy with—

Griffin’s mouth firmed as he brought an abrupt halt to the unsuitability of his thoughts. He could not keep Bella, even if she were foolish enough to want to stay with him. She was not a dog or a horse, and a duke did not keep a young woman, unless she was his mistress, and Bella was far too young and beautiful to be interested in such a relationship with a gentleman so much older than herself.

Nor did Griffin have any interest in taking a mistress. A few hours of enjoyment here and there with the ladies of the demi-monde was one thing, the setting up of a mistress something else entirely.

Even if his physical response to Bella was undeniable.

Chapter Three

‘People do not just disappear, Bella,’ he now bit out grimly. ‘Someone, somewhere, knows exactly who you are.’

Bella supposed that had to be true; after all, she could not have just suddenly appeared in the world as if by magic.

Oh, but it had been so wonderful, just for those few brief seconds, to imagine being allowed to stay here. To remain at Stonehurst Park for ever, with this proud and arrogant Duke, who she was sure had a kind heart, despite the impression he might wish to give to the contrary. After all, he had not hesitated to care for her, despite the circumstances under which he had found her.

She felt sure that a less kind man would have handed her over to the local magistrate by now, in fear she might be a criminal of some sort, rather than allowing her to remain in his household. For if it transpired she was a thief, then he could not be sure she might not steal all the family silver before escaping into the night. And she might do so much more if she were more than a thief...

No, despite his haughty aloofness, his moments of harshness, and that air of proud and ducal disdain, Bella could not believe Griffin to be anything other than a kind man.

Besides which, she had not imagined the physical evidence of his desire for her a few minutes ago.

She looked at him shyly from beneath her lashes. ‘Then I can only hope, whoever they might be, that they do not find me too quickly.’

Exactly what did she mean by that? Griffin wondered darkly.

He had come to Stonehurst Park for the sole purpose of finding Harker; the last thing he needed was the distraction of a mysterious woman he found far too physically disturbing for his own comfort!

A conclusion he was perhaps a little late in arriving at, when that young woman currently stood before him, barefoot, and a guest in his home...

The mysteries of her circumstances aside, Bella was something of an unusual young woman. The slight redness to her eyes was testament to the fact that she had been recently crying, which he was sure any woman would have done given her current situation. But most women would also have been having a fit of the vapours at the precariousness, the danger, of their present dilemma. Bella appeared calm, almost accepting.

As evidence that she did not, as he suspected, suffer from amnesia at all?

He looked at her coldly from between narrowed lids. ‘The sooner the better as far as I am concerned.’

Bella frowned at the coldness of his tone. Just when she had concluded that Stone must be a kind man he did or said something to force her to decide the opposite. As if in self-defence?

She turned away to look at the shelves of books so that he should not see the hurt in her eyes, glad when the heaviness of her heart lightened somewhat just at the sight of those books. As proof that she did indeed like to read?

She took a novel down from the shelf. ‘I believe I shall read Sense and Sensibility. I have read it before, but it has long been a favourite of—’ Bella broke off, her expression one of open-mouthed disbelief as she realised what she had just done. ‘Oh, my! Did you hear what I said?’ she prompted eagerly.

The Duke’s mouth twisted without humour. ‘I believe that happens sometimes with people who have lost their memory. They recall certain likes and dislikes, such as a foodstuff, or a book they have read, but not specifics about themselves.’

‘Oh.’ Bella’s face dropped in disappointment. ‘I had thought for a moment that I might be recovering my memory, and so relieving you of my presence quite soon, after all.’

Griffin knew that he deserved her sharpness, after speaking to her so abruptly and dampening her enthusiasm so thoroughly just now. He had been exceedingly rude to her.

But what was he to do when he was so aware of every curve of her body, even in that ghastly gown? When she had felt so soft and yielding in his arms just minutes ago? When the clean womanly smell of her, after the strong perfume and painted ladies of the demi-monde, was stimulation enough? When just the sight of her stockinged feet peeping out from beneath her gown sent his desire for her soaring?

Why, just minutes ago he had been thinking of keeping her!

Damn it, he could not, he would not, allow himself to become in any way attached to this young woman, other than as a surrogate avuncular figure who offered her aid in her distress. Chances were Bella would be gone from here very soon, possibly even later today or tomorrow, if his enquiries today should prove fruitful.

He deliberately turned his attention to the papers on his desk. ‘Do not go too far from the house,’ he instructed distractedly. ‘We have no idea as yet who is friend or foe.’ He glanced up seconds later when Bella had made no effort to leave or acknowledge what he’d said.

‘What?’ He frowned darkly.

She eyed him quizzically. ‘I was wondering if that follows you around constantly.’

Griffin’s irritation deepened at her enigmatic comment. ‘If what follows me around?’ He had owned a hound as a child but never as a man...

‘That black thundercloud hanging over your head.’

Griffin stared at her for several long seconds as if he had indeed been thunderstruck. He had also, he realised dazedly, been rendered completely speechless.

Did he have a thundercloud hanging over his head?

Quite possibly.

There had been little in his past, or of late, for him to smile about. Nor, he would have thought, too much to cause amusement to this young woman either, but Bella now gave him a mischievous smile.

‘If that should be the case, I sincerely hope it does not rain on you too often.’

Impudent minx!

Despite his best efforts he could not prevent the smile of amusement from curving his lips, followed by a sharp bark of outraged laughter as Bella continued to look at him with that feigned innocence in her candid blue eyes.

Bella’s breath caught in her throat as Griffin began to chuckle, finding herself fascinated by the transformation that laughter made to the usual austereness of his face. Laughter lines had appeared beside now warm grey eyes, two grooves indenting the rigidness of his cheeks, his sculptured lips curling back to reveal very white and even teeth.

He was, quite simply, the most devastatingly handsome gentleman she had ever seen!

Perhaps.

For how could she say that with any certainty, when she did not so much as know her own name?

She gave a shiver as the full weight of that realisation once again crashed down on her. What if she should turn out to be a thief, or something worse, and last night she had been fleeing from imprisonment for her crimes?

She did not feel like a criminal. Had not felt any desire earlier, as she’d made her way through this grand house to the Duke’s study, to steal any of the valuables, the silver, or the paintings so in abundance in every room and hallway she passed by or through. Nor did she feel any inclination to cause anyone physical harm—except perhaps to crash the occasional vase over the Duke’s head, when he became so annoyingly cold and dismissive.

Except there weren’t any vases in this room, Bella realised as she looked curiously about the study. Nor had she seen any flowers in the cavernous hallway to brighten up the entrance to the house.

That was what she would do!

When she asked Pelham for a blanket to sit on outside, she would also enquire about something with which to cut some of the flowers, growing so abundantly in the garden she could see outside the windows, and she’d ask for a basket to put them in.

Just because she had no idea who she was, or what she was doing here, was no reason for her not to attempt in some small way to repay the Duke’s kindness in allowing her to remain in his home. And this beautiful house would look so much more welcoming with several vases of flowers placed—

‘What are you plotting now?’ Griffin’s laughter had faded as suddenly as it had appeared, and he now eyed Bella warily as he saw the light of determination that had appeared so suddenly in her eyes.

She frowned as her attention snapped back to him. ‘Why do you treat me with so much suspicion?’ She gave a shake of her head. ‘I know that the circumstances of my being here are unusual, to say the least, but that is hardly my fault, or a reason for you to now accuse me of plotting anything.’

Griffin heaved a weary sigh, very aware that he was projecting his wariness and suspicions onto Bella, emotions so familiar to him because of Felicity’s duplicity. Which was hardly fair or reasonable of him.

He nodded abruptly. ‘I apologise. Perhaps I am just tired after my disturbed night’s sleep,’ he excused ruefully. ‘Please do go and enjoy reading your book out in the garden, and try to forget that I am such a bad-tempered bore.’

Griffin was far from a bad-tempered bore to her, Bella acknowledged wistfully. No, the Duke of Rotherham was more of an enigma to her than a bad-tempered bore. As he surely would be to most people.

So tall and immensely powerful of build, he occasionally demonstrated a gentleness to her that totally belied that physical impression of force and power. Only for him to then address or treat her with a curtness meant, she was sure, to once again place her at arm’s length.

As if he was annoyed with himself, for having revealed even that amount of gentleness.

As if he were in fear of it.

Or of her?

Bella gave a snort at the ridiculousness of that suggestion as she glanced at him, and saw he was already engrossed in the papers on his desk. He did not even seem to notice her going as she took her book and left the study to walk despondently out into the garden.

No, the differences in their stature and social standing—whatever her own might be, though it surely could in no way match a duke’s illustrious position in society?—must surely ensure that Bella posed absolutely no threat to Griffin. In any way.

In all probability, the Duke was merely annoyed with being forced to continue keeping the nuisance of her, and the mystery of her, here in his home.

She had not asked to be here, or to foist the puzzle of who she was upon him.

Nevertheless, that was exactly what had happened.

But where else could she go, and how could she go, when she had no friends or money with which to do so?

* * *

Like a moth to a flame Griffin found himself getting restlessly back onto his feet and wandering over to the window within minutes of Bella leaving the library, the papers on his desk holding no interest for him whatsoever.

At least, none that could compete with his curiosity in regard to the mystery that was Bella.

She had already spread a blanket on the grass and was now sitting beneath the old oak tree he could see from the window, the book open in her hand, the darkness of her still-damp hair loose again about her shoulders, now drying in the dappled sunlight filtering through the lush branches above her.

What was Griffin going to do with her, if his enquiries as to her identity should prove unsatisfactory?

She could not remain here indefinitely; if it turned out that she came from a family in society, as he suspected she might, then her reputation would be blackened for ever if anyone should realise she had stayed in his home without the benefit of a chaperone or close relative.

Inviting his only close relative to come to Stonehurst Park and act as that chaperone was totally unacceptable to Griffin; he and his maternal grandmother were far too much alike in temperament to ever be able to live under the same roof together, even for a brief period of time.

Perhaps he should send word to Lord Aubrey Maystone in London? He worked at the Foreign Office, and was the man to whom Griffin reported directly in his ongoing work for the Crown.

The puzzle of Bella was not a subject for the Foreign Office, of course. Nor was it cause for concern regarding the Crown. But Maystone had many contacts and the means of garnering information that were not available to Griffin. Most especially so here in the wilds of Lancashire.

Except...

Maystone had been put in the position of shooting one of the conspirators himself the previous month, and after that he’d become even fiercer in regard to the capture of the remaining conspirators. If Griffin were to tell the older man about Bella, he could not guarantee that Maystone would not instruct that Bella must be brought to London immediately for questioning, for fear she too was involved in that assassination plot in some way.

He might never see Bella again—

His gaze sharpened as he saw that while he had been lost so deep in thought, Bella had risen to her feet and left the shade of the oak tree to walk across the garden. She now stood in conversation with the gardener who had been working on one of the many flower beds.

This was not the elderly Hughes, who had been head gardener here even in Griffin’s father’s time, but a much younger man Griffin did not recognise. A handsome, golden-haired young man, in his early twenties, who was obviously enjoying looking at Bella as that dark hair hung loosely about her shoulders, as much if not more than the conversation.

Just as Bella appeared perfectly relaxed and smiling as the two of them chatted together.

Griffin did not give himself time to think as he turned to stride forcefully out of his study to walk down the hallway, leaving the house by the side door usually only reserved for the servants, before crossing the perfectly manicured lawn towards the still-conversing couple.

A handsome young man and beautiful woman so engrossed in each other they did not yet seem aware of his presence.

Bella broke off her conversation and her eyes widened in alarm the moment she spied the tall and fiercely imposing Duke storming across the grass towards her, his face as dark as that thundercloud he carried around above his head.

Her heart immediately started to pound in her chest, and the palms of her hands felt damp. What on earth could have happened to cause such a reaction in him?

‘Your Grace?’ She looked up at him uncertainly as he reached her side.

‘Who are you?’

The glowering Duke ignored her, his countenance becoming even more frightening as he instead looked at the young gardener with cold and frosty eyes.

‘Sutton, Your Grace. Arthur Sutton.’ The young man touched a respectful hand to his forelock, his face becoming flushed under the older man’s cold stare.

‘You may go, Sutton.’ Griffin nodded an abrupt dismissal. ‘And I would appreciate it if you would take yourself off to work elsewhere on the estate for the rest of the day,’ he added harshly, causing the bewildered young man to turn away and quickly collect up his tools ready for departing.

Bella felt equally bewildered by the harshness of Griffin’s tone and behaviour. It was almost as if he suspected her and the gardener of some wrongdoing, of some mischief, when all they had been doing was—

‘Oh!’ She gasped after glancing towards the house to see that the library window overlooked this garden, and realised exactly what Griffin had suspected her and the handsome gardener of doing.

Bella made sure that the young gardener had walked far enough away out of earshot, before she glared up into the harshly drawn face looking down at her so condescendingly. ‘How could you?’

The Duke quirked that infuriatingly superior eyebrow. ‘How could I what?’

‘You know exactly what I am talking about.’ Bella sighed her impatience. ‘How can you have been so disgusting as to have thought—to suggest, that I—that we—?’ She was too angry to say any more as she instead turned sharply on her stockinged heels to run back towards the house.

Hateful man.

Hateful, suspicious, disgusting man!

Griffin stood unmoving for several seconds after Bella had departed so abruptly, totally taken aback by her reaction. To the anger she had made no effort to hide from him as she’d spoken to him so accusingly.

Why was she angry with him, when she was the one who had been—?

The one who had been what?

Exactly what had Griffin actually seen from the library window?

The beautiful Bella in her overlarge gown, with her gloriously black hair loose and curling down the length of her spine, in conversation with one of his under-gardeners.

A young and handsome under-gardener, accepted, but Bella had not been standing scandalously close to Sutton, nor had she been behaving in a flirtatious manner towards him. Admittedly she had been smiling as she chatted so easily with the younger man, but even that was not reason enough for Griffin to have made the assumption he had.

Could it be that he had been jealous of her easy conversation and laughter with the younger man?

Was it possible that he thought, because of the unusual circumstances of Bella being here with him at all, that her smiles and laughter belonged only to him?

That she now somehow belonged to him?

* * *

‘Bella?’

She stiffened and ceased her crying, but made no effort to lift her head from the pillow into which it was currently buried as she lay face down on the bed.

She made no verbal acknowledgement of Griffin’s presence in her bedchamber at all. Correction, his bedchamber. As all of this magnificent house, and the extensive estate surrounding it, also belonged to him.

And she, having absolutely no knowledge of her past or even her name, was currently totally beholden to him.

But that did not mean Griffin Stone had the right to treat her with such suspicion. That he could virtually accuse her of flirting with Arthur Sutton. Or worse...

The under-gardener had been nice. A young man who had not been in the least familiar in his manner towards her, but rather accepted her as a guest of the Duke, and had treated her accordingly.

Not that she could expect Griffin to believe that when his mind was so obviously in the gutter.

What had she done to deserve such suspicion from him?

Admittedly, the circumstances of their meeting had been unusual to say the least, but surely there had to be an explanation for that?

Even if she had no idea as yet what that explanation was...

Besides which, she was so obviously battered and bruised, it was ludicrous to imagine that any man might find her attractive in her present state.

Although, there was no denying that Griffin himself had physically reacted to her close proximity earlier.

Perhaps it was just that he was a little odd, if he was attracted to a woman who was covered in bruises!

Which was a little worrying, now that Bella considered the possibility fully.

The Duke did not look like a gentleman who enjoyed inflicting pain, but that was no reason to suppose—

‘I apologise, Bella.’

The bed dipped beside her as the Duke, obviously tired of waiting for her response to his initial overture, now sat down on the side of the bed.

‘Bella?’

Her body went rigid as he placed a hand lightly against her spine. ‘We both know that is not my name.’ Her voice was muffled as she spoke into the pillow.

‘I thought we had agreed that it would do for now?’ he cajoled huskily.

Until they discovered what her name really was, Bella easily picked up on his unspoken comment.

If they ever discovered what her name really was, she added inwardly.

Which was part of the reason she had been so upset when she’d returned to the house just now.

Oh, there was no doubting this aloof and arrogant Duke had behaved appallingly out in the garden just now; he had spoken with unwarranted terseness to Arthur Sutton, and had certainly been disrespectful to her. His implied accusations regarding the two of them had been insulting, to say the least.

Bella’s previous treatment, as well as her present precarious situation, meant that her tears were all too ready to fall at the slightest provocation...

Griffin Stone’s behaviour in the garden had not been slight, but extreme.

Bella slipped out from beneath his hand before rolling over to face him, hardening her heart as she saw the way he looked down at her in apology. She had been enjoying her time out in the garden, and he had now spoilt that for her.

For those brief moments she had spoken with Arthur Sutton she had felt normal, and not at all like the bedraggled and beaten woman the Duke had found in the woods the previous night.

Her chin rose challengingly. ‘Your behaviour in the garden—the cold way you spoke to Arthur Sutton, as well as to me—was unforgivably condescending.’

Griffin only just managed to hold back his smile as Bella administered the rebuke so primly. To smile now would be a mistake on his part, when Bella was so obviously not in the mood to appreciate the humour.

‘And wholly undeserved,’ she added crossly as some of that primness deserted her to be replaced by indignation. ‘You may well be overlord here, Your Grace, but that does not permit you to make assumptions about other people. Assumptions, I might add, that in this case were wholly unfounded.’

Oh, yes, this young woman was certainly educated and from a titled or wealthy family, Griffin acknowledged ruefully; that set-down had been worthy of any of the grand ladies of the ton!

Did Bella even realise that? he wondered.

Possibly not, when she had no knowledge of anything before her arrival here last night.

Appeared to have no knowledge, he again reminded himself.

There was still that last lingering doubt in Griffin’s mind regarding her claim of amnesia. Added to, no doubt, by his having just observed her in conversation with one of his under-gardeners.

What if she had been passing information on to Arthur Sutton? If her arrival here in his home had been premeditated?

Shortly before the assassination plot against the Prince Regent had been foiled several of Maystone’s agents had been compromised. Griffin had been one of them.

There was always the possibility that Bella had been deliberately planted in his home, of course. That she was here to gather information from him as to how deeply their circle had been penetrated.

And he was becoming as paranoid as Maystone!

Nor was it an explanation that made sense, when Griffin considered those marks of restraint upon Bella’s wrists and ankles.

Alternatively perhaps she had been talking to Arthur Sutton in an effort to find some way in which she might leave Stonehurst Park without his knowledge.

And what if she had?

If Bella were to disappear as suddenly as she had arrived, then surely it would be a positive thing, as far as Griffin was concerned, rather than a negative one?

He would not have to give her a second thought this afternoon, for example, when he rode out to pay calls on his closest neighbours, in his search for information on Harker.

Nor would there be need to write to Aubrey Maystone in London to ask for his assistance, and possibly at the same time alert the other Dangerous Dukes to his present dilemma by doing so; in their work as agents for the Crown they all of them had or still reported to Maystone. Ordinarily Maystone would not discuss any individual agent’s business with a third party, but the older man was well aware of the close friendship between the Dangerous Dukes, and might feel obliged to mention his concerns to them.

The last thing Griffin wanted was for one or all of his closest friends to decide to come to Stonehurst Park to offer him their assistance.

Lord knew he had felt displeased, even proprietorial, merely watching Arthur Sutton in conversation with Bella, so how would he feel if any of his much more attractive friends were to come here and proceed to exert their considerable charms on her?

Admittedly only Christian Seaton, the Duke of Sutherland, still remained single out of those five friends, but Christian possessed a lethal charm as well as handsome looks. Women had been known to swoon when confronted by them.

‘What were you and Sutton talking about, Bella?’ Griffin demanded harshly, determined to remain in control of his wandering thoughts.

Bella frowned as she pushed herself up against the pillows; she felt at far too much of a disadvantage with Griffin looming over her in that way. ‘Should you not offer me an apology before making demands for explanations?’

The Duke’s jaw tightened. ‘I apologised a few minutes ago. An apology you chose not to acknowledge.’

‘Because it was far too ambiguous,’ she told him impatiently. ‘As it did not state what it was you were apologising for.’

The Duke closed his eyes briefly, as if just looking at her caused him exasperation. As no doubt it did. He had not asked to have her company foisted upon him, and whatever his own plans had been for this morning he had surely had to abandon them. Also because of her.

His eyes were an icy grey when he raised his lids to look at her. ‘It was not my intention to upset you.’

Bella raised dark brows. ‘Then what was your intention?’

Griffin wondered if counting to ten—a hundred!—might help in keeping him calm in the face of Bella’s determination to demand an explanation from him. ‘I was concerned that Sutton might have been bothering you.’

A frown appeared between her eyes. ‘How could that be, when I was obviously the one who had walked over to where he was working, rather than him approaching me?’

Griffin’s mouth thinned as he acknowledged that fact. ‘And I ask again, what were the two of you talking about?’

‘The weather, perhaps?’ she snapped, her irritation obvious.

‘I warn you not to try my patience any further today, Bella,’ Griffin rasped coldly.

Bella was deliberately provoking Griffin, and she knew she was. But with good reason, she believed.

She might not recall anything about herself, but this proud and arrogant Duke did not know anything about her either, and she resented—deeply—that, having seen her in conversation with Arthur Sutton, he had made certain assumptions regarding her nature.

She sat up fully to wrap her arms about her bent knees. ‘If you must know, I was asking Arthur for a trug and something to cut the flowers to put in it.’

‘Why?’ Heavy lids now masked the expression in Griffin’s eyes, but his increased tension was palpable, nonetheless.

‘This is such a beautiful house and the addition of several vases of flowers would only enhance—’

‘No.’

Bella blinked her uncertainty at the harshness of his tone. ‘No?’

‘No.’ He stood up abruptly, towering over her, his hands linked behind his back as he once again looked down the length of his aristocratic nose at her. ‘I do not permit vases of flowers in any of my homes.’

‘Why on earth not?’ She gave a puzzled shake of her head. ‘Everyone likes flowers.’

‘I do not,’ he bit out succinctly, a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw.

He was currently at his most imposing, his most chilling, Bella acknowledged. She had no idea why the mention of a vase of flowers should have caused such a reaction in him. ‘You are allergic, perhaps?’

His laugh was bitterly dismissive. ‘Not in the least. I am merely assured that the beauty of flowers is completely wasted on a man such as me.’

‘Assured by whom?’ Bella frowned her deepening confusion.

His eyes glittered coldly. ‘By my wife!’

His wife?

Griffin, the Duke of Rotherham, the man who had saved her from perishing alone and lost in the woods, the man she felt so drawn to, the same man who had physically reacted to her close proximity this morning, had a wife?

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