Disciplining the Duchess

Her eyes shone with new thoughts, new questions yet unspoken. How whimsical he was becoming, to encourage her so. Perhaps, rather than improving his wife’s peculiarities, he might become over time as peculiar and ill-mannered as she. His mother had already accused him of such. Harmony was looking over at him now with the most sincere gaze of…adulation.

“Yes, Your Grace. Everything is ancient, as you say. How can we ever understand all of it?”

“We needn’t,” he said, a practical stick-in-the-mud. “We need only understand the questions and concerns that affect us directly.”

She turned away to look back at the sky. She was thinking so hard he expected her to pass out at any moment from the pressure of all the “I wonder’s” in her head. She closed her eyes and spread her arms outward.

“I can feel the earth moving under me,” she said.

Nonsense, he thought.

“Can you feel it, Your Grace? The sway of the earth beneath you?”

“Yes,” he lied, only to hear her sigh of pleasure.

“It’s like a mother rocking a baby to sleep, don’t you think?”

“I surmise we are the babies,” he intoned lightly.

He waited for the next “I wonder” but none came. After several moments of silence he became aware that Miss Barrett had drifted to sleep there beside the Roman wall, rocked by the earth under her big blue bowl of sky. He leaned up quietly so he would not wake her, and regarded her for some time with his head propped on one hand. It seemed too intimate to watch her sleep, although they were both fully dressed and outdoors within view of the coachman, who waited patiently some distance away.

He noted that the little thinking lines on her brow eased as she fell into sleep. As time passed, as her slumber deepened, her lips parted a bit so her pretty mouth took on a sensual air. He very much wanted to kiss those lips, but he did not. He wanted to place his hands against the softness of her waist, run them over the silhouette of her breasts and hips, so erotic beneath the propriety of her gown. He wanted to clasp her to him and bury his nose in the curve of her neck, breathe her in and then lick the steady pulse that jumped just under her skin.

She was too vulnerable and sweet in sleep for him to think about the carnal things he’d like to do to her then. Instead he admired her delicate blonde lashes resting against pale skin, and thought how very many wishes they might bring him if only he believed. Then those lashes fluttered open. For a moment the big blue sky was reflected in her sleepy, unguarded gaze. He could not have looked away from her at that moment, not for any amount. Then the thinking lines were back. She looked past him, around them, remembering where she was.

“Oh, bother,” she said. “I fell asleep?”

“For a short time.”

“You ought to have woken me up.”

“You looked tired.” She still looked beautifully, drowsily tired, but they couldn’t tarry much longer. Their small escape out of time and place was at an end. “We must return soon, Miss Barrett.”

A frown chased away the last of her sleepiness. “I would rather not.”

He watched her, but no, still no acknowledgement of their situation or the repercussions thereof. So be it. He would rather travel back with her in a state of comfortable companionship than hysteria over impulsive mistakes. There would be enough hysteria later, from all concerned parties. His mother would keel over dead.

“My brother will be so, so angry,” she sighed as she sat up. “Really very angry.”

Court rose to his feet and extended a gloved hand to help her rise. “He will get over it. Everything will be settled soon enough.”

“And I shall have to travel all the way back to London with him tomorrow. A whole week’s time to endure his endless scolds.”

“I’m sure it will be nothing like that.”

Her gaze met his with resigned sadness. “I shall miss you very much when we part, Your Grace. Perhaps I shouldn’t say such a thing, but it is the way I feel in my soul.”

How dramatic she could be. He turned away from her to brush at the sleeves of his coat. “You forget. I have made promises to you. To give you some of my books, at the very least. There is no need to speak of missing one another.”

It was quite ridiculous to speak of missing one another, considering the scene that would play out when they returned. He could not decide yet if their situation was tragic or hilarious.

Somehow, he imagined it would end up being both.

Chapter Seven: Discussion

They rode the few hours back to Danbury House in comfortable silence. Harmony was too caught up in her memories of the day to carry on polite conversation, and the duke seemed reluctant to talk. She enjoyed that about him, his reserved, taciturn nature. She liked his stares, his mysterious expressions, because they gave her more to wonder about.

She liked him.

She looked up at him furtively for what must have been the hundredth time. She liked him very much indeed, and would miss him when they parted. She would miss his thoughtful blue-green eyes and his large, capable hands that looked only slightly more civilized in gloves. His hands were too large to be gentlemanly, it must be said, but he was an eminently civil man. One got the feeling around him that he rarely became flustered or lost control, which was a rare trait in her experience. Her brother was the opposite. He was constantly fretting and whining, and doing things that showed an intolerable lack of restraint. Of course, she probably appeared the same to the Duke of Courtland.

Harmony stole so many glimpses she began to feel embarrassed about it. He occasionally, unknowingly, obliged her by turning to stare out the window. Then she might gaze openly at his robust posture, the masculine set of his jaw. She remembered the day by the lake when she’d strolled beside him, how very strong and firm his forearm had felt beneath his fine coat. Now she truly knew the strength of that arm.

She hadn’t forgotten about that, her spanking. She would not tell the other ladies about it, for they would never understand. It hadn’t felt mean or cruel, more a natural extension of his obvious need to co

ntrol, to rule. To behave as a disciplined person and sometimes exert that discipline upon those around him. Those needs were just one more intriguing aspect about him, and not exactly repulsive to her mind. Strange? A little, perhaps. He was still a kind man. She was certain of that.

But he was a duke, at the end of it. He always would be, and she would always be odd Miss Harmony Barrett who had never found her place in the world. She would doubtless have many regrets about their journey when they returned to Danbury House, but she knew she could never be fully sorry because she had enjoyed her time in his company.

Oh, she would miss him so much.

“What is the matter?” he asked in a quiet voice.

“N—Nothing, Your Grace.”

“You look troubled.”

Harmony swallowed hard. “I was just thinking that I have enjoyed knowing you, but we are very different from one another.”

“We are. But in some ways, I imagine we are the same.”

“What ways?”

He gave her an unfathomable look. “A puzzle for you, Miss Barrett. To occupy your time. How are we the same?”

“I don’t know.” She studied him, wishing she knew him better. Wishing she had more time to discover who he truly was. “What is the story of your life, Your Grace? What has made you into the man you are today?”

He pondered a moment, rubbing his fingers over his lips and then brushing them down his chin. “I was born to the Duke and Duchess of Courtland thirty years ago. I was raised from the most tender age to succeed my father to the title, which occurred when I was fourteen years old.”

She waited, but he said nothing more. “That’s it?”

His cultivated features took on a severe air. “That is the story of my life. I left out the minor details.”

“You left out all the details.”

“I shared the details I wished to share. But you see the man I am before you. What brought me to this state is irrelevant. All that matters is the manner in which I conduct myself going forward.”

“I see,” she said. “How philosophical of you.”