Least Likely to Marry a Duke (Liberated Ladies)

Well. Goodness. If she had admired his figure when he was fully dressed, then the sight of the thin linen shirt blown back against working muscles was enough to make her mouth go dry.

Flustered, she looked down at the coat, fussed over its arrangement and, as Will took a slightly different angle across the water and the breeze caught them, inhaled a heady mixture of fine woollen cloth warm from his body and a spicy cologne. The boat rocked and she held the sides with a gasp of alarm.

‘Are you all right, Miss Wingate?’

No! ‘Yes, perfectly, thank you. I am becoming used to the motion of the boat, that is all. I have no experience of being on water.’

‘You are nervous? There is no need to be.’

‘Not at all. Although I cannot swim.’ And now they seemed a very long way out and there was a current against which Will had to row hard—the dammed river, she supposed. If anyone fell in here it would be a long way to shore for a swimmer—and probably a long way down for someone who was not.

‘There will be no need to worry about that.’ Her admission seemed to have cheered him up. Presumably he disapproved of females swimming. ‘I have no intention of capsizing this boat and, even if I did, I can swim and would rescue you.’

Probably he swims as well as he rows, Verity thought.

And now she had to contend with her imagination conjuring up visions of the naked wet Duke.

Chapter Seven

Verity made herself focus on why she was here, sitting on a hard, narrow wooden bench in the middle of a cold, deep lake with a man who disapproved of her so completely. The naked, wet, disagreeable Duke, she reminded herself, hoping that the colour she could feel in her cheeks looked like the effects of the breeze and not wicked thoughts. ‘I can see the island.’ She pointed over Will’s shoulder and he glanced behind to check his course.

‘It does not look as though it could be artificial,’ she said, squinting against the sunlight reflected off the little wavelets. ‘It is a long way out and the water must be far too deep there.’

‘Can you see a burial mound?’

Verity shook her head, craning to look past his broad shoulders at the land looming closer. ‘No. But there are trees and bushes covering all that I can see, so there may be something hidden there.’

‘It must have been a small hill before the river was dammed. Perhaps a watchtower was built there and the children mistook its ruins,’ Will offered with scrupulous politeness, as though to counter any disappointment.

The ideal host, she thought, refusing to be charmed. Her friends would be agog to hear that what had passed between her and the Duke of Aylsham. They were meeting this afternoon in the tower room as usual, quite at home there, following their interests freely, companionably silent or engaged in spirited discussion, as the mood took them. Prue might even have recovered enough to agree to disrobe so Jane could finish her picture. All of them, presumably, behaving in a way unfitting to a gentlewoman, unfitting for a gentleman’s wife.

They had been delighted to hear about the invitation to visit Stane Hall, convinced that the news of such sociability would make their parents even more determined to pursue the Duke instead of seeking out other, unwelcome suitors for them.

‘What are you thinking about to put that smile on your lips, Miss Wingate? If it is something you are prepared to share, that is.’

‘I was thinking about my friends, about their companionship and their talents.’

Wishing we could inhabit that tower together, doing what we choose with our lives...

‘You find that th

ere is society enough in the area to supply you with many congenial friends, Miss Wingate?’

‘Indeed, yes. Of course, plain Miss Wingate need not be as choosy as a duke about the company she keeps. The respectable and the worthy are in ample supply in the district, I can assure you.’

‘You think me guilty of snobbery?’ One oar dipped, caught and splashed his sleeve with water. The fine linen, wet, became transparent, moulding the lines of his forearm in graphic detail.

‘Not at all, you simply know your own worth, Your Grace, as I am sure all dukes do.’

‘You do not like me, Miss Wingate.’ This time the oars cut cleanly through the surface.

‘I am aware that you do not approve of me, Your Grace. You have made that perfectly plain. If it comes to it, I do not approve of you—I prefer gentlemen to have more flexibility, more tolerance. But beyond that it would be foolish of me to go, considering that I am in a perilous situation and entirely at your mercy.’

He smiled tightly, almost surprising her into smiling back. ‘You will not trick me into repeating my hasty and intemperate words.’

Nor will you withdraw them, she thought. Or apologise.

‘I greatly admire the manner in which you support your father—your care and tact. I would have to be blind not to admire your looks and foolish to neglect your intelligence and spirit. I cannot approve of unconventional females—I am sure you can comprehend why—and I will do all in my power to ensure that my sisters are raised according to the strictest principles of behaviour for young ladies. However, I can assure you I will not drop you into the lake in consequence of that.’