A Duchess a Day Page 5

  “Can we speak in a stall?” She pulled an apple from her pocket and moved to the gate, clucking softly to the horse. The animal, half dozing, opened its eyes and caught sight of the shifting white gown and spooked, neighing nervously, crowding himself in the corner.

  Declan swore. “You’re frightening the horses.”

  “I’m not. I’m merely—”

  In one fluid movement, he fastened his hands around her waist and lifted her up, backing them away from the anxious animal. Helena let out a little yelp, but he kept moving.

  “You are mad,” he said, gathering up arms and legs and yards of white fabric. The gown wrapped around his forearms, tangling him like a net. He struggled to find her body within the cottony vortex, the robe trailing behind them like a train. Swearing again, he hoisted her into his arms like a mermaid.

  “I can walk,” she said.

  “But you weren’t walking, were you? You were inciting a stampede. Horses don’t like things they cannot understand.”

  But I do, he thought. He glanced down at her and then away. God help me.

  She said nothing, allowing him to carry her. He stalked past the tack room, the bridle room, the blacksmith’s station. His only plan was to remove her from the open stable door and the sleepy horses. The building ended with the carriage room and he slowed only long enough to nudge through the door.

  “The other grooms have gone,” she informed him. “I made certain. I am only seen when I wish to be seen.”

  “Shhh,” Declan said, but he thought, You must want me to see you very much.

  I see only you.

  Darkness pervaded the carriage room. The corners were swallowed by shadows. The duke’s four vehicles loomed like carriage-shaped voids. A distant window offered a dusty rectangle of silver moonlight. Declan blinked, willing his eyes to adjust. He closed the door gently with his hip and pivoted. For a long moment, he held her, listening, alert for any stray movement or sound.

  In his arms, she breathed in and out. Her breath on his neck was a caress. It wrecked his concentration.

  You were in jail too long, he told himself. Across the room, he could just make out a workbench, clean and level. He strode to it, plunking her down.

  “You have five minutes,” he said.

  She jolted when her bottom hit the bench—“Oof!”—but did not resist. She reached out for balance, clasping his biceps with both hands.

  “Five,” he repeated, staring at her bare fingers on his arms. His own hands were buried in layers of white fabric, holding tightly to the curve of her waist.

  “And what should I say in these five allotted minutes?”

  “You’re joking?”

  “Yes,” she said coolly, “I’m joking. It is such a lark when servants take me up and haul me into dark rooms to interrogate me. Which, by the way, is precisely the behavior of a spy.”

  “Not this again,” he groaned.

  “Of course, this.”

  “My lady . . .” he warned. His hands slid from her waist. He stepped back.

  She held up a hand. “Look, Shaw, I know you are not a groom. I know Girdleston assigned you to me for some restrictive, duplicitous reason. My work avoiding this wedding is too important for me not to know your assignment or the reason for it.”

  “Fine,” he said. “If I was a spy, do you think I would tell you?”

  “If you were a spy, a real spy, I don’t think you would have allowed the library to go unchecked. And yet Girdleston appears to know nothing. If you were a spy, you would not be entertaining me in this stable—”

  “I’m not entertaining you.”

  “You are not marching back to the house.” She raised an eyebrow. “Please be aware: if you are a spy, you are very bad at it.”

  “I am a groom,” he tried.

  “If you are a groom, you are familiar and entitled and bossy.”

  “Your five minutes are up.”

  “I need more time.”

  “And I need you safely back inside the house.”

  “Your relation to me, spy or otherwise, was not the only reason I’ve come. I have something else to ask you.”

  “I have nothing else to tell you,” he said, but in truth, he thought he could talk to her all night.

  “It’s not a question, it’s a request. And your answer will inform all my other concerns. I need your help.”

  Declan went still. This sounded like a trap. “What help? The kind of help available from a stable groom?”

  She shrugged. “Possibly. It’s for tomorrow. There’s a party I’m meant to attend with my mother and sisters.”

  “And what is proven if I refuse to help?”

  She waved a dismissive hand. “Do not trouble yourself. The important thing is, if you do it, it will help me a great deal. And if you refuse, your loyalties will be revealed. And I can make do.”

  Declan tried to make sense of this. “How will my loyalties be revealed?”

  She shrugged. “Will you listen to the request?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “You could haul me inside and hand me over to Girdleston. But that, too, would tell me so much.”

  Declan sighed. She’d known that she would be safe here with him. She’d known that Girdleston would not be informed. He was doomed. He was utterly doomed.

  “Right,” she said, forging ahead. “Here is my request. This party should include the usual trappings, tea and cake, with droves of gossipy women and piles of gifts. So many gifts, in fact, I believe we will require several carriages for the purpose of conveying them home. I cannot imagine that grooms will not be part of this . . . transport.”

  “The coachman mentioned this,” he said cautiously.

  She planted her hands on the bench, sending waves of billowing fabric puffing in drifts down her body. “Well, because you are my private groom, I should like to have you there to attend me. Inside this party.”

  “Inside a ladies’ tea party?”

  “Actually, it’s a garden party,” she mused. “That is, if the weather holds. Lady Canning’s garden is a great source of vanity. If it is remotely mild and dry, apparently we will be outside. Either way, I shall need your help, but certainly this will be easier done if we are in the garden.”

  “What will be easier? What is my objective?”

  “Are you asking for your faux objective, or your actual objective?”

  Declan swore in his head and turned away. He looked at the glow of moonlight through the window and thought of his jail cell. He thought of his father and the small, fogged window of his bedroom beside his tailor shop. He thought of his own bloody survival. She was like a dervish, but if he concentrated, if he really concentrated, he could just see beyond the cyclone.

  “I’m asking for all objectives,” he said slowly, turning back. “What can you possibly expect a liveried groom to do inside a society party?”

  Lady Helena held up slim fingers and ticked off expectations. “One of my mother’s gossipy friends has been invited. This is a great stroke of luck, as she is my greatest hope for building a list of potential duchesses for the duke.”

  Declan blinked, trying to dissipate the shadows. Was she asking him to be complicit? Was the question no longer Are you a spy? Was it Help me run away?

  He began shaking his head.

  No. No. No.

  No.

  Lady Helena forged on. “The woman won’t rattle off the names outright, of course, but I feel certain I can dislodge them through gossip and flattery, et cetera.”

  He gritted out, “And my role?”

  “You will be assisting with my many packages and parcels—all the gifts I shall receive because I am Lusk’s bride-to-be.”

  “There are footmen for this.”

  “But only my personal groom can be trusted with our gifts,” she amended. “And while you are inventorying and guarding the gifts, you will also be standing ready.”

  “Ready for what?”

  “For me to sail by rather
quickly and—”

  “Oh God.”

  “—take down the names of the girls I learn from my mother’s friend. To record any useful gossip I discern. I could never take down these notes while I’m circulating. I couldn’t remember everything I hope to learn. I’m wholly unschooled in London gossip. These names and directions will have no value to me. It will be like a foreign language.”

  “No.”

  “But you’ve hardly considered it,” she countered. “The task is only to stand near the gifts, inventory them—or pretend to inventory, honestly, who cares—and I will whisper my findings to you each time I come ’round. We need only paper and pen, which I will provide in the morning. Think of your secret role as Girdleston’s nonspy spy. What better way to keep an eye on me than to be within the bounds of the party?”

  He stared at her, disbelieving.

  Finally, he said, “You are aware that grooms have no business inside parties. Nor do they take dictation. And even if they did, I am employed by Girdleston. You are actively trying to undermine him.”

  “You cannot possibly have loyalty to Lusk or Girdleston or the dukedom,” she said. “That was plain to me in the library.”

  Declan opened his mouth, then closed it. She was correct, of course. He’d recoiled at the sight of the unconscious duke. Looking back, he’d wanted her to see his disgust.

  “Make no mistake,” she went on, “I know you have no loyalty to me either. We’ve only just met.” She raised an eyebrow and flicked the thick rope of her braid over her shoulder. It hit the workbench with a thump. His gaze slid from her head to her boots. Desire surged like a falcon on a tether.

  How could he be invigorated by the sight of her when he could barely see her? And what he saw was buried in ten yards of white cotton. Why was it impossible not to look?

  I’m exhausted, he thought errantly. I began the day in prison, I made a deal with the devil, and now I’m in hell—all in one day. Exhausted.

  But that was a lie. He was not exhausted.

  He should be. Any sane man would be. Instead, he felt like a thick bolt of lightning had made prolonged contact with the top of his head. His heart thudded. Every nerve was alive to the sheer challenge of Helena Lark.

  He was just about to remind her that her five minutes were up when a loud, shrill sound rent the night, freezing them in place.

  Crreeakk—the unmistakable sound of a swinging stable gate.

  In unison, their heads snapped to the door. Helena sucked in a gasp. Declan brought a finger to his lips. Shhh.

  Silence. Night noises fell into a hush.

  Declan cocked his head, straining to hear footsteps, or the clink of tack, or the jostling of a chain.

  Heart drumming, every muscle poised to scoop her up and dive into the shadows, he scanned the dark room. He’d closed the door but had not locked it, which was a reckless, amateur mistake. Now the closed door obscured his hearing while the open lock left them unprotected. Stupid, stupid, distracted, stupid.

  Slowly, sound by sound, the night reanimated. He heard hoofbeats in the distance. Gutters dripped. Insects clicked and whirred.

  Helena sucked in a breath to speak. “I will—”

  Declan leapt forward, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and pressing a hand over her mouth.

  “Shhh,” he whispered, speaking to the whirl of her ear.

  She went tense. She breathed in a slow, shaky breath.

  “Not yet,” he whispered, his lips against her ear.

  She nodded. Another moment passed. And another.

  The night unspooled with no other sound but the rapid draw of their mingled breath. Far away, someone laughed. A horse whinnied. London rumbled at a low shuffle. Declan’s heartbeat slowed; he swallowed, and let out a breath.

  Bone by bone, Helena’s tenseness began to drain. She went soft and malleable beneath his hands. He’d been braced against her, but her shoulders relaxed. She was soft in his arms. Her neck bowed, tipping her chin into his wrist.

  She was perched on the edge of the bench, her knees sticking out, and they parted just a little—just enough. His thighs slid between her legs; he was flush against the bench, her legs on either side of him. He need only scoop her up to hold her. She need only wrap her legs around his haunches to—

  He held his breath, not trusting himself to move.

  Softly, she murmured some word. He was reminded his hand covered her mouth. He released her. His palm settled on her thigh.

  “It must have been nothing,” he said softly. “The wind.”

  She licked her lips, nodded, rustled.

  Move away, he ordered.

  Move on.

  Move your head from your loins.

  Move your priorities into plain view.

  Declan did not move.

  One hand held her shoulder, the other clenched her thigh. The cotton was fine beneath his fingers and, idly, he rubbed circles into the warmth of her skin.

  She looked up. He could just make out the green of her eyes. She appeared . . . mystified, like she was walking through a dream.

  Declan’s control, already so thin, rapidly drained away. A very distant chant of No, no, no pecked his brain, an inconsequential bird in an inconsequential tree, miles away.

  “This is new,” she whispered, “in the way of resistance.” She licked her lips. “I had not thought to seduce one of the grooms.”

  “Please do not say that,” he rumbled. “This is not resistance, nor seduction. This is not happening.”

  “I believe it is happening,” she said. “I’ve never been . . . taken up by a man before. It is a singular experience.”

  Declan opened his mouth to say something but realized that honestly there was nothing he could say. He thought of pulling away but did not have the strength. He thought of tossing her over his shoulder and hauling her to the house, but that ship had sailed. He didn’t have the will to return h—

  Suddenly he was struck by the glimmer of an idea.

  A very bad but potentially effective idea.

  It would be like dropping a heavy bundle down a hill instead of lugging it down on his back.

  He stepped closer and repeated her last words. “A singular experience, you say?”

  She narrowed her eyes, confused. Her lips formed the most irresistible almost-smile.

  If she told him to stop, he would. If she looked alarmed or distressed, he would stop.

  If she was afraid of him, she would not ask favors of him or test his loyalties.

  If she was afraid of him, she would not seek him out in dark stables.

  If she was afraid of him, she would not torture him.

  He stared at her mouth, waiting impatiently for her to say the word.

  Please tell me to stop.

  Slowly, carefully, with fingers that shook, he reseated his hands on her waist. He met her gaze; their eyes locked. His expression was meant to convey entitlement and possession and strength.

  She laughed.

  She actually laughed. A light, musical sound. “Well,” she said. “Come on, then.”

  Declan growled, and scooted her to the edge of the workbench in one forceful yank. She sucked in a little breath. She settled her hands on his forearms as she tipped her head up. The word stop seemed like the furthest thing from her mind.

  Declan went slowly, carefully, closing the distance between them. With the pressure of a feather, he bussed her lips with a soft kiss. Once. Twice . . .

  So soft. Oh God, so soft. His eyes drifted closed. He dipped again. On the third pass, he remained right there, his bottom lip pressed to the crease of her mouth. He nibbled, gave a teasing lick.

  Helena smiled, trying to follow along. Her eager innocence was his undoing.

  He wanted to devour her. Everything about her—her confidence, her cleverness and courage, her ridiculous grandmotherly gown—made him ravenous. She was so deliciously unschooled, uncertain but intoxicatingly eager.

  She let out a little sound, the noise of delight
and desire, and he matched it with a groan. His hands moved, smoothing his palms from her waist up the curve of her back. He felt her braid against the back of his hand and fumbled for it, wrapping it around his knuckles. He tugged, ever so slightly. Lady Helena arched her neck and sighed.

  She’d held her body taut and upright, straining for his lips, but now she moved in a languid sort of daze, coming alive under his hands. She turned her head to breathe and her cheek scraped the stubble of his beard. Her hands climbed from his neck and dug into his hair, squeezing, pressing his face down. She burrowed into his chest until there was nothing between them. The soft, slight weight of her imprinted on him like warm wind to a stiff sail. His chest swelled; she filled his consciousness. He was propelled while he stood stock-still.

  The heartbeat in his ears accelerated, blotting out all sound. If every horse in the stable had been set free, he would not have heard. His vision was reduced to flashes of her skin and her gown and her. Every sense was alive with Helena Lark.

  He tried to think, he meant to think, but he’d been plunged into a pool of desire, and he was too far from the surface to swim up. He wanted to drown.

  She was such a quick learner. When he tipped his head one way, she canted the other. When he teased her with his tongue, she met him with her own. Her hands trailed from his hair, down his neck, off his shoulders, kneading all the way. When she reached his biceps, she dug in. Her right leg hooked behind his left knee, and Declan groaned into her mouth.

  The embrace unspooled so slowly, so gently. It was like unwrapping a delicate, forbidden gift that belonged to someone else. He was no thief, but God, he wanted this. With shaking hands, he worked back layers of ribbon and tissue, careful not to unsettle what was inside.

  All the while, she kissed and kissed and melted against him, and he went on basking in her until his bad idea felt like the very best idea he’d ever had.

  Helena Lark should not have thought of her grandmother during her first real kiss. She knew this. Thoughts of Gran were distracting and strange and a waste of very precious time. Even so, it was Rosemary Lark’s voice she heard in the final lucid moments before desire swallowed her up.

  Well done, Lena, said the sweet, aged voice. I should expect nothing else.