Minx

  Four hours later Henry had a feeling she knew exactly why. Emma Ridgely, Duchess of Ashbourne, had quite the most energy she’d ever seen a person possess, herself included. And Henry had never thought of herself as a particularly languid person.

  It wasn’t that Emma bustled about with nervous energy. Quite the opposite; the petite woman was the epitome of grace and sophistication. It was simply that everything Emma did or said was infused with such vitality that her companions were left breathless just watching her.

  It was easy to see why her husband so adored her. Henry only hoped Dunford would one day come to love her with such single-minded devotion.

  The evening meal was a delightful affair. Belle and John had not yet arrived from London, so it was just Dunford, Henry, and the Ashbournes. Henry, still slightly unaccustomed to taking her meals with anyone other than the Stannage Park servants, reveled in the company, shaking with mirth at the stories her companions told of their childhoods and adding a few of her own.

  “Did you really try to move the beehive closer to the house?” Emma laughed, patting her breastbone as she tried to regain her breath.

  “I have a dreadful passion for sweets,” Henry explained, “and when the cook told me I couldn’t have more than one a day because we didn’t have enough sugar, I decided to rectify the problem.”

  “That will teach Mrs. Simpson to make up excuses,” Dunford said.

  Henry shrugged. “She’s never minced words with me since.”

  “But weren’t your guardians terribly upset with you?” Emma persisted.

  “Oh, yes,” Henry replied with an animated wave of her fork. “I thought Viola was going to faint. After she had me drawn and quartered. Luckily she was in no shape to punish me, what with twelve bee stings on her arms.”

  “Oh, dear,” Emma said. “Were you stung as well?”

  “No, it’s amazing, but I wasn’t stung at all.”

  “Henry seems to have a way with bees,” Dunford said, trying very hard not to remember his own reaction to Henry’s beehive exploits. He felt an incredible surge of pride as he watched her turn back to Emma, apparently to answer another question about the beehive. His friends loved Henry. He had known they would, of course, but it still filled him with joy to see her so happy. For what must have been the hundredth time that day alone, he marveled at his blind good luck in finding the one woman in the world who so obviously suited him in every way.

  She was marvelously direct and efficient, yet her capacity for pure, sentimental love knew no bounds; his heart still ached whenever he remembered that day at the abandoned cottage when she cried over the death of an unknown baby. She had a wit to match his own; one didn’t even need to hear her speak to know she was uncommonly intelligent—it was right there in the silvery sparkle of her eyes. She was terribly brave and damn near fearless; she’d have to be to try to—and succeed at—running a modest-sized estate and farm for six years. And, Dunford thought, a half-smile creeping onto his lips, she melted in his arms every time they touched, turning his blood to fire. He ached for her every minute of the day and wanted nothing more than to show her with his hands and lips the depth of his love for her.

  So this was love. He almost chuckled out loud right there at the dining table. No wonder the poets spoke so highly of it.

  “Dunford?”

  He blinked and looked up. Alex was apparently trying to ask him a question. “Yes?”

  “I asked,” Alex repeated, “if Henry has given you similar cause for alarm in recent weeks.”

  “If you don’t count her continued adventures with the beehives of Stannage Park, then she has been the soul of dignity and decorum.”

  “Really?” Emma asked. “What did you do?”

  “Oh, it was nothing,” Henry replied, not daring to glance at Dunford. “All I did was reach in and pull out a bit of honeycomb.”

  “What you did,” he said sternly, “was nearly get yourself stung by a hundred angry insects.”

  “Did you really put your hand into a beehive?” Emma leaned forward interestedly. “I should love to know how to do it.”

  “I should be forever in your debt,” Alex interjected, directing his words at Henry, “if you would endeavor never to teach my wife how.”

  “I wasn’t in any danger,” Henry said quickly. “Dunford likes to exaggerate.”

  “He does?” Alex asked, raising his brows.

  “He was very anxious,” she told him, then turned to Emma as if she had to explain. “He gets very anxious.”

  “Anxious?” Emma echoed.

  “Dunford?” Alex asked at the very same time.

  “You must be joking,” Emma added, in a tone that suggested there could be no other possible alternative.

  “Suffice it to say,” Dunford cut in, eager to make short work of this line of conversation, “that she managed to take ten years off my life, and that is the end of the subject.”

  “I suppose it will have to be,” Henry said, looking at Emma with a little shrug, “as he has made me promise never to eat honey again.”

  “He did? Dunford, how could you? Even Alex hasn’t been that beastly.”

  If her husband objected to the implication that he might be a little beastly, he made no comment.

  “Just so that I do not go down in history as the most overbearing man in Britain, Emma, I did not forbid her to eat honey.” Dunford turned back to Henry. “I merely made you promise not to procure it yourself, and frankly, this conversation has grown tedious.”

  Emma leaned toward Henry and whispered in a voice that could be heard clearly on the other side of the table, “I have never seen him this way.”

  “Is that good?”

  “Very.”

  “Emma?” Dunford said, his voice frighteningly casual.

  “Yes, Dunford?”

  “It is only my extreme good manners and the fact that you are a lady that prevent me from telling you to shut up.”

  Henry looked frantically at Alex, positive that he was about to call Dunford out for insulting his wife. But the duke merely covered his mouth and started to choke on something that must have been a laugh, for he hadn’t taken a bite in several minutes.

  “Extreme good manners, indeed,” Emma replied tartly.

  “It certainly cannot be the fact that you are a lady,” Henry said, thinking that Dunford must be very good friends with the Ashbournes if Alex was laughing at what might have been perceived as an insult to Emma. “Because he once told me to shut up, and I have it on the best authority that I am a lady as well.”

  This time Alex started to cough so violently that Dunford felt compelled to whack him on the back. Of course, he just may have been looking for an excuse to do so.

  “And whose authority is that?” Dunford asked.

  “Why, yours of course.” Henry leaned forward, her eyes glinting devilishly. “And you should know.”

  Emma joined her husband in a duet of coughing spasms.

  Dunford sat back in his seat, a reluctant smile of admiration creeping across his face. “Well, Hen,” he said, waving his arm at the duke and duchess, “we seem to have made short work of these two.”

  Henry tilted her head to the side. “It wasn’t very difficult, was it?”

  “Not at all. Presented no challenge whatsoever.”

  “Emma, my dear,” Alex said, regaining his breath, “I think our honor has just been impugned.”

  “I’ll say. I haven’t laughed so hard for ages.” Emma stood and motioned for Henry to follow her into the drawing room. “Let’s be off, Henry, and leave these gentlemen to their stuffy cigars and port.”

  “There you have it, minx,” Dunford said as he rose to his feet. “You’ll finally be able to find out what goes on when the ladies retire after supper.”

  “Did he call you ‘minx’?” Emma asked as she and Henry exited the room.

  “Er,
yes, he calls me that sometimes.”

  Emma rubbed her hands together. “This is better than I thought.”

  “Henry! Wait just a moment!”

  Henry turned around to see Dunford striding quickly toward her. “If I might have a quick word with you,” he said.

  “Yes, yes, of course.”

  He drew her aside and spoke in a low whisper that Emma, no matter how hard she pricked her ears, could not hear. “I need to see you tonight.”

  Henry thrilled at the urgency in his voice. “You do?”

  He nodded. “I need to speak with you privately.”

  “I’m not certain . . .”

  “I’ve never been more certain. I’ll rap on your door at midnight.”

  “But Alex and Emma—”

  “Always retire at eleven.” He smiled rakishly. “They enjoy their privacy.”

  “All right, but—”

  “Good. I’ll see you then.” He dropped a quick kiss on her forehead. “Not a word of this to anyone.”

  Henry blinked and watched him return to the dining room.

  Emma was at her side with remarkable speed for one who was seven months pregnant. “What was that all about?”

  “Nothing, really,” Henry mumbled, knowing she I was a bad liar and yet trying to attempt to brazen it out nonetheless.

  Emma snorted her disbelief.

  “No, really. He just, ummm—he told me to behave myself.”

  “To behave yourself?” Emma said doubtfully.

  “You know, not to make a spectacle of myself or anything like that.”

  “Now that is a clanker if ever I heard one,” Emma retorted. “Even Dunford must realize it would be impossible for you to create any kind of scene in my drawing room with only me for company.”

  Henry smiled weakly.

  “It is apparent, however,” Emma continued, “that I’m not going to get the truth out of you, so I won’t waste my valuable energy trying.”

  “Thank you,” Henry murmured as they resumed their walk toward the drawing room. As she strode alongside Emma, she clenched her fist into an excited little ball. Tonight he would tell her he loved her. She could feel it.

  Chapter 18

  11:57.

  Henry clutched at the folds of her dressing gown as she glanced at the clock on her bedside table. She was a fool for going along with this, an idiot for being so in love with him that she had agreed to this scheme even though she knew her behavior was beyond indecent. She chuckled wryly to herself when she remembered how unconcerned with etiquette she’d been back at Stannage Park. Unconcerned and unknowing. A fortnight in London had made clear to her that if there was one thing a young lady was not to do, it was let a man into her bedroom, especially when the rest of the house was dark and asleep.

  But she couldn’t seem to manage to summon enough maidenly fear to refuse him. What she wanted and what she knew was right were two distinctly different things, and desire was winning out over propriety by a vast margin.

  11:58.

  She sat down on the bed and then, realizing where she was, jumped up as if burned. “Calm yourself, Henry,” she muttered, crossing her arms, uncrossing them, then crossing them again. As she paced across the room, she wandered by a mirror, caught sight of her stern countenance, and then uncrossed her arms again. She didn’t want to receive him lounging on her bed, but there was no need to look quite so forbidding.

  11:59.

  A light rap sounded on the door. Henry flew across the room and opened it. “You’re early,” she whispered frantically.

  “I am?” Dunford reached into his pocket for his watch.

  “Will you come inside?” she hissed, yanking him in. “Anyone could see you out there.”

  Dunford dropped his watch back into his pocket, smiling broadly all the while.

  “And stop smiling!” she added rather fiercely.

  “Why?”

  “Because it—it does things to me!”

  Dunford shifted his gaze up to the ceiling in an attempt to keep from laughing out loud. If she thought that statement would get him to stop smiling, she was addled in the brain.

  “What did you need to talk with me about?” she whispered.

  He moved to her side in two easy paces. “In a minute,” he murmured. “First I have to . . .”

  He let his lips complete the sentence as they captured hers in a searing kiss. He hadn’t meant to kiss her right away, but she’d looked so damned adorable in her dressing gown with her hair floating around her face. She made a soft mewling sound, and her body shifted slightly, settling into his large frame.

  Reluctantly, he drew himself away. “We’re not going to get anything done if we continue on like . . .” His words trailed off as he caught the dazed expression on Henry’s face. Her lips looked unbearably pink, even in the candlelight, and they were slightly parted and damp. “Well, perhaps one more . . .”

  He pulled her against him again, his lips searching hers in another remarkably thorough kiss. She was kissing him back with just as much feeling, and he dimly realized that her arms had wound themselves around his neck. A tiny spark of reason, however, somehow managed to remain active in his brain, and once again he disentangled himself. “That’s enough,” he muttered, the scolding intended solely for himself. Taking a shuddering breath, he looked up.

  Big mistake. Another fiery bolt of need rocked through him at the sight of her. “Why don’t you just sit over there?” he said hoarsely, waving his hand in no particular direction.

  Henry had no idea that the kiss had left him as shaken as it had her, and she took his direction literally. Her eyes followed his arm’s motion, and she said, “On the bed?”

  “No! I mean—” He cleared his throat. “Please do not sit on the bed.”

  “All right,” she said slowly, moving to a straight-backed, blue-and-white-striped chair.

  Dunford walked over to the window and looked out, trying to give his body time to cool down. Now that he was actually here, in Henry’s room at midnight, he wasn’t at all certain that he was following the wisest course of action. In fact, he was convinced he was not. He had originally planned to take Henry out for a picnic the next day and propose to her then. But that night at dinner, it had suddenly hit him that his feelings went beyond affection and desire. He loved her.

  No, he didn’t just love her. He needed her. He needed her like he needed food and water, like the flowers at Stannage Park needed the sun. He smiled wryly. He needed her like she needed Stannage Park. He remembered how, one morning at breakfast back in Cornwall, she’d been gazing out the window with an expression of pure rapture. He imagined that must be how his face looked every time he saw her.

  And so while he was sitting there in Westonbirt’s informal dining room, a piece of asparagus dangling off his fork, it suddenly had become imperative that he tell her all this that night. These feelings were so powerful they were painful to keep inside. Making a secret assignation had seemed the only option.

  He had to tell her how much he loved her, and as God was his witness, he wasn’t going to leave this room until she told him the very same thing.

  “Henry.” He turned around. She was sitting up very straight in her chair. He cleared his throat and said again, “Henry.”

  “Yes?”

  “I probably should not have come tonight.”

  “No,” she said, not sounding as if she meant it.

  “But I needed to see you alone, and tomorrow seemed an eternity away.”

  Her eyes widened. It was not like Dunford to speak in such dramatic terms. He looked quite agitated, almost nervous, and it definitely was not like him to be nervous about anything. Abruptly he closed the distance between them, then knelt on the floor at her feet.

  “Dunford,” she said in a strangled voice, not at all sure what she was meant to do.

  “Shhh
, my love,” he said. And then he realized that was it exactly. She was his love.

  “I love you, Henry,” he said, his voice like rough velvet. “I love you like I never dreamed I could love a woman. I love you like everything in this world that is beautiful and good. Like the stars in the sky, and like each and every blade of grass at Stannage Park. I love you like the facets of a diamond, and Rufus’s pointy ears, and—”

  “Oh, Dunford,” she burst out, “I love you too. I do. So much.” She slid to the floor next to him and grasped his hands with hers. She kissed each one, then both together. “I love you so much,” she murmured again. “So very much, and for so very long.”

  “I’ve been an idiot,” he said. “I should have realized what a treasure you are the moment I saw you. I’ve wasted so much time.”

  “Only a month,” she said tremulously.

  “It seems like forever.”

  She moved to sit down on the carpet, pulling him down with her. “It has been the most precious month of my life.”

  “I hope to make the rest of your life just as precious, my love.” He reached into his pocket and pulled something out. “Will you marry me?”

  Henry had known he would propose, had expected it on that trip to the country even, but still she was overcome. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she could only nod, having apparently lost the power of speech.

  Dunford uncurled the fingers of his fist to reveal a stunning diamond ring, an oval-cut stone set very simply in a plain gold band. “I couldn’t find anything to rival the sparkle in your eyes,” he said softly. “This was the best I could do.”

  “It’s beautiful,” she breathed. “I have never owned anything like this before.” She looked up anxiously. “Are you certain we can afford it?”

  Dunford let out a short burst of laughter, amused by her concern for their finances; obviously she didn’t realize that, although previously untitled, his was one of the wealthiest families in England. He was also absurdly pleased with the way she had said, “Are you certain we can afford it?” He lifted her hand to his lips, gallantly kissed it, and then said, “I assure you, minx, we still have enough left over to buy an entire new flock of sheep for Stannage Park.”