The Spring Duke (A Duke for All Seasons) Page 7

  “I liked talking about mother.”

  “Yes,” he agreed after a long pause. “I did as well. We should make a habit of discussing her more often.”

  His daughter smiled. “That would be nice.”

  Swallowing past the lump in the middle of his throat, Ambrose watched as his daughter skipped happily away.

  Chapter Eight

  “Absolutely not,” Ambrose said flatly. “I forbid it.”

  Athena released a long suffering sigh. “I haven’t even asked the question yet.”

  “But I already know what you’re going to ask, and the answer is no. Absolutely, positively not.”

  “It would only be for a few hours.” Crossing her arms, she leaned back against the window sill. On the other side of the glass rain fell from a dull, colorless sky in heavy sheets.

  It had been storming for the past four days straight. Confined indoors, Athena and Victoria had already done everything imaginable to fill their time from bear tea parties to conducting a dramatic Shakespearean play for the servants in the drawing room. Unfortunately, the rain showed no sign of letting up which was why she’d approached the duke to ask his permission to take Victoria to a new exhibit that had just been revealed at the Royal Academy of Arts.

  The Academy, she’d discovered after a bit of late night research in the duke’s extensive library, had been created in 1768 as a school for aspiring artists. Ensconced in the North Wing of Somerset House, a grand mansion overlooking the Thames, the Academy hosted an exhibit once a year to showcase the work of its students. Admission was free – although a donation was subtly implied – and this year’s theme was the human form.

  Athena thought touring the world-renowned exhibit would be an excellent way to spend a rainy afternoon. Unfortunately, Ambrose did not seem to be in agreement. Not entirely shocking, given they rarely agreed on anything.

  “What part of no are you finding hard to understand?” he asked, glaring at her. “It would not be suitable for a young child. Or a young lady, for that matter.”

  “I’m not a lady, I’m a governess.”

  “A temporary governess who should know better than to take her impressionable charge to an exhibit filled with naked bodies!”

  “You keep using that word ‘temporary’.” Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t think it means what you think it means.”

  It had been five weeks since she’d stood in Ambrose’s study and accepted the position of governess. Five weeks of secret glances and scowls and one very passionate kiss. Five weeks of being told she was on the verge of being replaced. Five weeks of going to bed and wondering if she would still have a job come morning. Yet for all his bluff and bluster and use of the word temporary, Ambrose had yet to sack her. Truth be told, she was beginning to wonder if that was still his intention at all. Particularly since he hadn’t conducted a single interview since their disagreement at the fountain.

  “Finding a governess has been more difficult than I anticipated,” he allowed. Picking up a small glass figurine off a table, he tossed it from one hand to the other. “It seems Mrs. Mableton wasn’t exaggerating when she said there weren’t any left.”

  “Who is Mrs. Mableton?”

  “Victoria’s last governess.”

  Lifting herself up on the windowsill, Athena crossed her legs at the ankle and arched a brow. “I suppose she wasn’t suitable enough?”

  “Mrs. Mableton was very suitable. But she decided to seek employment elsewhere when Tori slipped a frog down the front of her dress.”

  “So that’s where the frog came from.”

  “Indeed,” Ambrose grimaced.

  “Victoria just needs someone who understands her.” Athena wasn’t sure when it had happened, but she’d grown incredibly fond of the duke’s daughter. Probably because Victoria reminded her so much of herself.

  Ambrose frowned. “The two of you do seem to have developed a good rapport.”

  “You say that like it is a bad thing.”

  “No. It is simply...unexpected.”

  “Too bad it is only temporary,” she said glibly.

  “What if it wasn’t?”

  Athena’s breath caught. Ambrose couldn’t be saying what she thought he was saying...could he? With the exception of their kiss and the heated looks he gave her when he thought she wasn’t paying attention, he’d given no indication he wished to pursue an intimate relationship.

  She knew he desired her. It was painfully – and frustratingly – obvious to see. But despite her best attempts, she couldn’t compete with the memory of his deceased wife. Nor did she want to. She’d come to London on a fanciful whim, and she was ready to leave just as easily. Or so she told herself late at night when the moon was her only companion and her thoughts were consumed by a man who would rather spend his time in the past than take a risk on the future.

  “What do you mean?” she asked carefully.

  Ambrose set the glass figure back on the table and stared at it intently, as if it were the most interesting thing he’d ever seen. “What if you stayed on?”

  Excitement coursed through her. “As what?”

  “As Victoria’s governess.” He lifted his head to frown at her. “What else would you be?”

  What else indeed, Athena thought bitterly as the blossom of hope that had begun to unfurl in her chest abruptly withered. She leaned back, pressing her spine against the window. The glass was slightly chilled, but it did nothing to cool her rising temper. “While I have immensely enjoyed my time with your daughter, I did not come here to be a governess.”

  Ambrose scowled. “If you bring up that damned letter again I’m going to tear it to pieces. I know why you came here, and you’re reasoning is just as ridiculous now as it was when you first arrived. A love letter written over seventy years ago is not a reason to marry someone! To even suggest such a thing is absurd.”

  “More absurd than a marriage arranged in infancy?” she countered. “More absurd than a marriage of convenience? More absurd than two people who hardly know each other getting married after one dance around a ballroom?”

  He raked a hand through his hair. “We hardly know each other.”

  “I know you prefer your coffee black and steaming hot. I know you like to go for a ride first thing in the morning when the sun is barely past the trees. I know you pinch the back of your neck when you’re flustered, just like you are doing now.” Sliding off the sill, she approached him and gently placed her hand in the middle of his chest, her palm fitting perfectly over the steady beat of his heart. “I know you are an honest and honorable man,” she continued, her voice whisper soft as she gazed deeply into his eyes. “I know you are a good father. And I know you are afraid to love because losing someone you care about again terrifies you.”

  “Miss Dogwood...”

  “Call me Athena.” Rising up on her toes, she pressed her lips to his in a brief, searching kiss that made his eyes darken and his jaw clench.

  “Athena,” he said hoarsely. “We can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “The devil if I know.” Lowering his head, he devoured her mouth with such fierce, unbridled need that she was quite literally rocked back on her heels. With a savage growl that was more wolf than man he backed her up against the window before sliding his hands under her bottom and setting her effortlessly upon the sill.

  Rain lashed at the glass as the winds picked up outside, but it did not compare to the storm raging within. Wet, sticky heat pooled in Athena’s belly when Ambrose nudged her thighs apart and stepped demandingly between them. She felt the hard jut of his arousal pressing against her skirts, a fiery brand that was both thrilling and terrifying in size.

  Know him? She thought dazedly when he cupped her cheek, his thumb settling in the small groove underneath her chin as his tongue slipped between her lips to taste and tease and torment. I don’t know anything about this man.

  Gone was the cold, restrained duke who had kissed her like a lover and then treated her like a st
ranger. At long last he’d dropped his heavy shield, exposing the hot-blooded man that dwelled beneath the ice. The man who was going to take what he wanted, consequences be damned. And what he wanted...

  Was her.

  He wanted all of her, every single inch, and Athena cried out when he ripped down her bodice, revealing her breasts to his hungry gaze. He feasted upon her as if he were starved and her body was a banquet of one delicious delicacy after another.

  She sank her fingers into his hair when he suckled on her nipple. Threw back her head when he untied her knitted silk drawers with one deft pull and followed the long, lean line of her calf all the way up to her soft, pillowy thigh. Sat upright with a throaty gasp when he parted her curls and stroked the heart of her desire with one wicked finger.

  “You taste like honey,” he murmured, his mouth tracing a slow, leisurely path up her neck as his finger made her burn below. “I wonder if you taste like honey everywhere?”

  “What are you...” she began, confused when he dropped to his knees and shoved up her dress. “Oh.” Her eyes widened. “Oh, there is most certainly a rule against that.”

  And she was beyond thrilled he was breaking it.

  A fire began to build inside of Athena. With every lick and nibble the flames grew higher and higher until, without warning, they exploded into a brilliant array of lights that lit up the entire parlor and the gray, cloudy sky beyond. She slumped back, breathless and exposed. Ambrose slowly rose from between her thighs, his eyes as dark as she’d ever seen them, his lips still damp from tasting her.

  “Was that nice enough for you, Miss Dogwood?” he asked silkily.

  “That was...” Words failed her, so she simply nodded her head.

  “Good.” His mouth curved. “Let’s do it again.”

  Chapter Nine

  Ambrose didn’t know the hell it had happened. One moment he and Athena were arguing over the letter and the next he was knelt between her thighs and tasting her sweet nectar upon his tongue.

  If he didn’t know any better he would have suspected witchcraft, but his American governess was no witch. A beautiful fairy. A tempting siren. The most bloody irritating woman he’d ever had the misfortune to encounter, yes. But a witch? No, not that.

  Ignoring the aching heaviness in his bollocks, he stood and adjusted his cravat. Then, because if now wasn’t a time to drink he didn’t know what was, he went to the liquor cabinet tucked behind a chaise lounge and poured two glasses of sherry.

  “Here,” he said gruffly, extending one to Athena.

  “It’s only half past ten in the morning.” But she accepted the wine and took a liberal sip before setting it aside on the sill and tugging her skirts into place. “Well then,” she said, canting her head to the side.

  “Well then,” he echoed, twirling the glass between his thumb and index finger as guilt weighed heavily upon his shoulders. Good God, what had he done? A kiss in a bedchamber late at night was one thing. Ravishing an unmarried woman in open daylight in the middle of the damn parlor, of all places, was something else entirely. Even when he and Sophia had been married they’d never...that was to say, not once had they... A dull flush overcame his countenance as he cleared his throat and averted his gaze.

  His raw, carnal appetites had always intimidated his first wife. Which was why he’d learned to suppress them. If he’d attempted to do to Sophia what he’d just done to Athena she would have been terrified, and rightly so. He had acted like a savage. Licking his governess to orgasm on the damn windowsill. Not once, not twice, but three times. When anyone could have walked in at any moment.

  It was barbaric.

  It was unthinkable.

  It was bloody sensational.

  He gritted his teeth. “I lost control. That should not have happened, Miss Dogwood. You are an innocent, and my employee besides. I must truly–”

  “If you apologize again,” Athena said pleasantly, “I am going to take my shoe and hit you in the head with it.”

  Ambrose blinked. “You’re...not upset?”

  She lifted a brow. “Do I look upset?”

  No. Sitting on the sill with her hair spilling down her back in soft waves and her mouth swollen from his kisses she looked like precisely what she was: a damned goddess. Lifting his wine glass, he drank the rest of the sherry in one long, gulping swallow.

  “This cannot happen again, Miss Dogwood.”

  “That’s what you said the last time.” Leaving her wine unfinished on the sill, she slipped down and crossed to a large mirror hanging on the wall. Twisting her hair on top of her head, she began to pin it back into place.

  “This time I mean it.”

  “Do you?” she asked, meeting his gaze in the mirror’s silvery reflection.

  “Yes,” he lied. “I do.”

  “That’s unfortunate.” Having finished repairing the coiffure his fingers had torn apart, she turned to face him. “I am not a woman who enjoys wasting her time, so I am going to speak bluntly.”

  “Do you ever not speak bluntly?” he wondered aloud.

  The corners of her mouth twitched before her expression grew somber. “I did not know what – or who – I would find when I followed my great-grandmother’s letter to England. You could have been very old, or very young. You could have been married or happily engaged. Instead you’re...well, you’re you. And I am me.” She spread her hands apart. “And I don’t know if it’s fate, or chance, or just blind stupid luck, but it is clear there’s passion between us. Bright, brilliant, once-in-a-lifetime passion. The sort of passion I crossed an ocean to find. And I did find it. With you. What are the odds of that?”

  What were the odds a stubborn American heiress would arrive on his doorstep out of the blue and make his blood burn hotter than he had ever dreamt possible?

  “Astronomical,” he acknowledged.

  “Astronomical,” she repeated, nodding. “There’s something between us, Your Grace...” Her lashes lowered. “Ambrose.”

  He inhaled sharply. To hear his name between her lips was as intimate as a silken caress. He wanted to hear her say it again...preferably on the windowsill. And sprawled across the chaise lounge. Sitting in the chair. Standing against the wall. Leaning on the bookshelf. He wanted to hear her whimper his name anywhere and everywhere, again and again and again, until they were both too exhausted to lift their heads.

  “I don’t know what to call it,” Athena continued, oblivious to the sinful nature of his thoughts. “I don’t even know what it is. But I know I’ve never felt anything like it before and I think...” She hesitated. “I think I may be in love with you.”

  His gaze grew shuttered. “You don’t love me.”

  Her brows snapped together. “I believe I do.”

  “No,” he said flatly. “You don’t.”

  “I really believe–”

  “You love adventure, Miss Dogwood. After all, you crossed the Atlantic to seek it. You love the idea of being in love.” He brought his hands behind his back so she couldn’t see the way his fists trembled. “But you don’t love me.”

  She drew back her shoulders. “I should think I know my own feelings.”

  “Well you don’t know mine, for if you did you would know I am not in love with you.” It was a cruel thing to say and a cruel way to say it. He threw the words up like a shield, desperately trying to protect the cracks in the ice around his heart. Cracks she had caused the moment she interrupted his orderly life. Athena was a tempest, and if he wasn’t careful he was going to be swept away.

  If he ever decided to take another duchess she would be a lady like Sophia. Someone quiet, shy, and polite. Not the hellion that stood before him now with her hands on her hips and fire flashing in her eyes.

  “You’re afraid.” A crackling boom of thunder shook the parlor. Athena didn’t flinch. “You’re afraid, but you don’t need to be. I am not trying to replace your wife. Allowing yourself to love me will not make you love her any less.”

  Pain pierced him like a
n arrow. “You have no damn idea what you’re talking about,” he said hoarsely. “You think you know me after five weeks? Sophia knew me for fifteen years.”

  But she was right.

  Athena, blast her, was right.

  He was afraid.

  Afraid of losing what memories of Sophia he had left. Afraid of letting her go once and for all. Afraid of loving someone else...and losing them the same way he’d lost Sophia.

  He was so bloody afraid he was choking on fear, which was why he’d surrounded his heart with ice.

  Ice was cold and sterile.

  It didn’t feel. It didn’t fear. It didn’t hope.

  It didn’t love.

  And if he allowed the ice to melt...if he allowed the ice to melt he was afraid of what it would reveal.

  “Victoria is very fond of you, Miss Dogwood.”

  Her small jaw clenched. “Ambrose–”

  “She is very fond of you,” he continued in the same cool, autocratic tone he used with all of his servants, “and with a few exceptions, you have been an outstanding governess. The position is available to you for as long as you wish to fill it. We will not speak of what happened here this morning, and it will never happen again. You have my word. Is that understood?”

  “Don’t do this. I told you, I am not going to waste my time.” She lifted her chin. “Nor will I beg for yours.”

  He steeled himself against the flurry of emotions whirling inside of his chest. “Is that understood?”

  “Yes. I understand perfectly.” But her smile was cold, the light in her eyes dim. “Is there anything else, Your Grace?”

  “No. That will be all.”

  “Very good.”

  As Athena walked stiffly out of the parlor, an unwelcome thought occurred to Ambrose. One that had the hairs on the nape of his neck prickling with unease and left a bitter taste in the back of his mouth.

  There was more than one way to lose someone you loved.

  Chapter Ten

  Athena had sent Dana to visit her family in Ireland, which meant she was left to pack up her own hat boxes.