Least Likely to Marry a Duke (Liberated Ladies)

‘Adequate? Ungracious? Have you no sense of propriety, Miss Wingate?’

‘I was Verity a moment ago and I really think we have moved beyond questions of propriety.’

‘We had both taken leave of our senses a moment ago.’

‘I must certainly have done so.’ Her wretched hat had slid down and over one ear. She jerked it back. ‘I had assumed I could walk on my father’s land without being insulted.’

‘I have apologised for that kiss.’ Colour flared across Will’s cheekbones. ‘It was very wrong of me, but no insult was intended.’

‘And I have said there was no call to apologise for it. I refer to your inability to recognise that I am a thinking adult who can make her own decisions. Now that is an insult. Good day to you, Your Grace.’

It felt good to walk away without looking back. Verity even managed it without tripping over any fallen branches or catching her skirts on the brambles. Insufferable man. He had asked, she had assented and kissed him back. So why did he then have to act as though she was a little ninny who did not know her own mind?

Although to be honest, Verity thought as she arrived, panting slightly, at the edge of the coppice, she must have been out of her mind to have wanted to kiss the Duke.

Will. I wanted to kiss Will. But why? Just because he is good-looking?

How humiliating if that were the case. Was she deluding herself that there was more to the man than the face that he showed the world, that the glimpses of a lonely, confused child, of a man with a deeply buried sense of humour, were actually the real Will Calthorpe?

She slowed down a little to cross the meadow, then climbed the steps set into the side of the ha-ha, at which point she discovered that she had no energy to go any further and sat down on the lawn—never mind about the grass stains—and stared out towards the distant line of burial mounds to carry on trying to fathom what had just happened.

I do not like the Duke, but I think I might like Will.

But why? And why did she still want to kiss him, even after that humiliating reaction? It had been a more than adequate kiss. It had been a very nice kiss, whatever she had thrown at him just now, but it had not been so spectacular that she had entirely lost her wits. It was surely not because of his rank. She could acquit herself of being as shallow as that. Besides, the sight of a duke was not enough to cause that sensual little shiver or the fluttering low in her belly—it was the man behind the title who caused that.

A cock pheasant strutted down the slope of the lawn, saw her and struck a pose, lifting his tail and fluffing out his wing feathers.

Another handsome male. Is that all it is? I have fallen for broad shoulders and thick blond hair and chiselled cheekbones. And that mouth, of course...

Oh, that mouth—and what she sensed that the man could do with it if he ever let himself go without inhibition.

Goodness, that would make her as bad as any heedless male—excited by looks and without any discrimination about the inner person. And the inner person in this case was starched-up, over-conscious of his rank and power and the last man on earth who would make a good husband for a woman who wanted independence and freedom.

Husband? Verity sat up with a jerk and the pheasant flew away with a squawk of alarm. Have I taken leave of my senses completely? One kiss and I am thinking of marriage?

It would be a life sentence of stultifying propriety chained to a man for whom being the perfect Duke appeared to be all important. He would want numerous perfectly proper offspring, too.

Verity thought about children—her own children—now and again with a pleasant yearning ache and a vision of laughing, happy little figures. Certainly the dream had not included producing an heir and a spare to order and bringing up little girls to make perfect, dutiful marriages. Once she’d had daydreams of a charming rectory with roses around the door, children playing on the lawn and a handsome rector crafting an intelligent and humane sermon in the study while she was occupied with whatever the much-loved wives of handsome and intelligent rectors did to pass their day perfectly.

Impatient with her own thoughts, she scrambled to her feet and walked back to the gardens.

You were foolish and young then and you flatter yourself now, she thought, her sense of humour returning as she shook the dried grass stems out of her skirts. It takes two to make a marriage and whatever makes you believe, Verity Wingate, that he even thinks of you once you are out of his sight?

An unexpected armful of woman was enough to make any man want to snatch a kiss, she knew that perfectly well. There was no importance to be attached to the sensual urges of the average male and it would be a mistake to imagine that a duke, however perfect, was immune to those same desires.

* * *

What had he been thinking, to kiss the Bishop’s outrageous daughter? Will strode through the woods, striking out with the sole desire to reach the edge and find some landmark to orientate by so he could remove himself from the area as quickly as possible. He had not been thinking at all, of course. He had been reacting to the arrival in his arms of a warm, soft, curvaceous armful of young woman who apparently, in that moment, wanted to kiss him as much as he wanted to kiss her.

And very good it had been, too, whatever insultingly lukewarm adjectives she had used to describe it. Verity—Miss Wingate, he corrected himself—was obviously the chaste young lady one would expect, but she had been kissed before and she was more than willing to kiss in return. He ran his tongue over his lower lip. It still held the impression of hers, he could still taste her and the sweet, subtle scent of wisteria seemed to hang in the air around him, however fast he walked.

But he should not be kissing young women he had no intention of courting. He should not be kissing any respectable young woman for almost a year, although it was beginning to dawn on him that twelve months of celibacy was not going to be easy. In fact, with the memory of Verity Wingate in his arms, his body was forcefully reminding him that it would be very difficult indeed. He had glimpsed the considerable charms of her friend in all their glory the other day and had hardly felt a flicker of interest, but Miss Wingate appeared to have an inconv

eniently inflammatory effect on him.

Hell. Which meant that he was either going to have to grit his teeth and put up with it, on top of everything else he had to contend with, or he must spend some time in London setting up a mistress. When his father died and it had become clear that he was going to have to spend all his time, and energies, on the affairs of the dukedom, he had parted amicably enough from his last chère amie. It had taken considerable diplomacy, and some very nice diamonds, to achieve the amiable parting: no courtesan walks away from an affaire with a duke willingly.

But now... He supposed he could return to Cynthia. But she had doubtless found another protector already and if she had not, then by showing interest he might be raising expectations of a longer-term relationship than he wanted. Once he was married that would be that, he was firmly resolved. It might well be that he would be making a marriage of convenience with the most suitable partner, but that did not mean he could, or would, ignore his vows.