Page 28 of A Virgin for the Rakish Duke (Romancing a Rake #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

J eremy glared out of the window, determined to neither look at Harriet nor break the silence.

A clean break is best. My resolve is not up to the task of resisting the feelings I have for her for long.

For a while, he had been enjoying himself.

The art had been inspiring. He had allowed himself to be inspired, forgoing his ambitions for a while, reminiscing about the ambitions he had nurtured as a young child.

Then he had reached his great-grandfather's work.

On proud display in a gallery for the nation, considered worthy of inclusion in that hallowed space.

In that moment, he had been dragged back to earth, brutally so.

It was nothing more than a dream, and he could never expect to realize it.

I was cross at Harriet for putting me in the position where I remembered my dream and then had to face losing it all over again. But that wasn't fair...

His eyes were irresistibly drawn back to the sleeping figure of Harriet.

Her lashes began to flutter, and he had been about to speak her name, to wake her.

But something had stopped him. Now, sleep had smoothed her features, rendering them innocent and almost childlike.

Her innocence and fair beauty shone. Jeremy's eyes flicked to the street outside, knowing that they would reach Grosvenor Square in just a few minutes.

Turning in his seat, he let down the hatch that separated the enclosed carriage from the driver.

“Take your time,” he instructed, “a circuitous route until I tell you otherwise, good man.”

Turning back to Harriet, he reached under the seat on which he sat and produced a wooden box. It was varnished and dark with age, scratched and scuffed despite the protection of many layers of beeswax over the years.

For a moment, his hands rested on its surface. He remembered finding it in a dusty storeroom in Penhaligon Manor, seeing his great-grandfather's initials carved in its wood. Opening the box, Jeremy took out a sheet of folded paper and a charcoal stick.

Why did I put this in the carriage? Why did I begin wanting to carry this with me as I used to do? Art is not my destiny. The El Dorado is. The entertainment of England's great and good has only ever been my forte...

But Jeremy took great comfort from holding the implements of art in his hands. His earlier anger seeped away as he gazed at Harriet and began to sketch…

The roar of hard carriage wheels against the road was deafening.

Combined with that was the furious drumming of galloping horses, horses that were out of control.

Harriet bounced on the hard seat, tossed as though the carriage were a dinghy atop storm-whipped waves.

She clung to whichever part of the carriage she could fasten her white-knuckled fingers onto.

Terror dried her mouth. She wanted to close her eyes, shut out the mad-cap dash that the carriage was carrying her on.

Shut out the terminal end that was drawing ever nearer.

“Just like Mama and Papa. I will end the same way as they did. Ralph was right, this is what freedom brings. I should have stayed at Oaksgrove, where it was safe. I should not have strayed from Ralph's protection.”

Dark countryside flashed by, branches that whipped and struck at the sides of the carriage. Roots slammed into the wheels, throwing the conveyance up to come crashing back to the hard earth, with each crash promising a sudden end to the terrible journey.

Then she heard another sound over the tumult.

A voice calling her name. Then the sound of another set of hoof-beats, coming from behind and drawing closer.

She hauled herself to the window, risking a look out and back.

Jeremy flew along the road behind her atop a stallion whose tail and mane flew.

Its nose stretched ahead of it, striving to reach her.

Jeremy crouched in the saddle, low against the dangerous branches to either side. His face was intent, eyes narrowed.

Harriet screamed his name, the sound whipped from her mouth by the storm of her passage. The carriage rocked on its wheels, threatening to overturn. Then Jeremy was drawing alongside, the speed of his mount somehow more than a match for the runaway team that hauled the carriage.

“You must jump!” he cried.

“I cannot!” Harriet screamed.

“You must. I cannot lose you so soon after discovering you! There is no more time!”

Harriet looked to where Jeremy's suddenly wide eyes had glanced. The trees had fallen away, and the carriage raced across open ground. The horizon was suddenly shortened, a presage of an abrupt end to the ground. A cliff towards which the carriage was hurtling.

Jeremy vaulted from the saddle, catching the carriage door, which swung wide as though trying to dislodge him.

A hinge snapped, and the door came away from the body of the carriage.

But Jeremy had already swung himself forward to catch the bridle of the nearest horse.

Harriet screamed as it seemed certain he would be dragged beneath the animal's hooves and then the wheels behind it.

But Jeremy's strength was prodigious. He not only held on but hauled himself up the horse's flank to mount it. Then he was standing between the two-horse team, reaching down to haul on their manes, forcing them to stop. But the animals’ fright was considerable.

They did not want to stop, convinced that they fled from something truly terrifying.

The cliff edge rushed nearer, and Jeremy threw himself back.

Tendons stood out on his neck as he exerted every iota of strength, heaving the bridles back.

His teeth were bared, arms locked. He was a god of the old times, Thor or Odin, exerting strength beyond mortal man.

He roared his defiance of death, fighting with every sinew to save the woman he loved.

The horses reared and were suddenly digging their hooves into the earth. The carriage fish-tailed behind them and finally came to a halt.

Harriet fell back inside, breath rasping from her throat, heart hammering.

Her muscles felt like water. Jeremy appeared at the door.

He was clad in shirtsleeves, breeches, and boots.

The laces of his shirt were open to reveal his muscular chest with its light furring of hair.

His hair was in disarray around his face; eyes like ice fell upon her.

He gathered her into his arms with strength tempered by tenderness.

She clung to him as he carried her away from the carriage, trembling like a bird in the hand.

He knelt amid soft moss, laying Harriet onto the ground.

She refused to let him go, holding his shirt in a tight grip, pulling him down onto her.

She kissed him, lifting her head to fasten her lips to his.

Then he was pressing her down to the soft, fragrant earth.

She raked her fingers through the mane of his hair, then along the harsh contours of his face.

High cheeks, strong jaw. A face as stern as stone, as fierce as a savage from the dark ages of history.

But in the darkness, she could feel the softness beneath, could map the love and tenderness that existed in that face for her.

His lips felt hot against hers, tongue darting to taste her and be met with her own.

She breathed in, gasping as her desire sent shock-waves of pleasure through her.

Jeremy was above her, kissing her neck and whispering her name.

There was a novel in those whispers, meaning that went beyond the simple syllables of her name.

She heard the desire he had tried to hide from her and himself.

Heard the thankfulness that she was alive and safe.

Heard the hope for the future, a future in which they were together.

She whispered his own name back to him, clutching his head to hers, biting at his ear as she murmured.

It was an intimacy beyond anything their bodies could ever give them.

To speak each other's names so fervently, with such passion.

To caress those sounds with their tongues and lips was the same as caressing each other's bodies.

Her dress was falling away, suddenly undone and being pulled down from her shoulders.

There was nothing beneath but her skin. Jeremy's mouth fastened on her breast, making the nipple stand proud in the warm, wet embrace of his mouth.

Harriet wriggled and writhed to shed herself of the dress, pushing it down over her hips.

The need to be naked before him was suddenly overwhelming. She needed it as she needed air.

His manhood pressed against her, urgently demanding release.

As he came up to kiss her, hands crushing and squeezing her breasts, she reached down, cupping him and delighting in the hardness she felt.

Hard and growing. She tugged at the buttons securing his breeches until there was enough space for her to reach inside and touch him directly.

“My lady,” Jeremy rasped.

Harriet frowned, looking up at him and wondering why he chose to address her so.

“My lady!” he said again, as though calling to her from a distance now.

“My lady!”

Harriet opened her eyes and found herself looking at a uniformed doorman of the Imperial, Grosvenor Square. She blinked, the memory of the dream still alive in her mind.

“Sorry to disturb you, my lady, but you have arrived. The Imperial,” the doorman declared, holding the door of the carriage open. “Are… are you quite well? Should I send for a physician?”

Harriet stretched lazily, fighting the disappointment at the realization that it had all just been a dream. Terrifying in its beginning but wonderful by its end.

Wonderful as only a dream could be. And as far from reality as it was possible to be.

For she had forsaken Jeremy, given him up as unattainable.

And he has given me up. We are a means to an end for each other and will go our separate ways soon enough. Yet I wish the thought did not bring me such melancholy...

“No, it is simply very warm in this carriage, and I fell asleep. I am quite well, thank you,” Harriet murmured, accepting a hand down.

“You've forgotten something, my lady,” the doorman remarked, reaching back into the carriage and plucking something from the seat.

It was a small, white piece of folded paper.

Harriet frowned as he handed it to her, then smiled her thanks and entered the Imperial.

She ascended to her rooms, thankful that Beecham was not in the lobby on sentry duty, waiting for her.

Closing the door behind her, she unfolded the paper and gasped.

It bore a simple sketch of a sleeping woman, drawn in pencil with a few skillfully placed lines. So skillful and elegant was the author that she could immediately make out that the woman in the picture was herself.

On the reverse of the paper were the words Drury Lane, Royal Theater, as well as a time and date. The date was today, and the time was later in the evening. Harriet found herself smiling when she read the scrawled words beneath the date.

Get rid of the butler. Dash them all.

Her smile became a grin. She lifted the paper to her lips, imagining she could smell the spice of his cologne, wanting to touch the pencil lines that had come from his hands.

What does this mean? Has he rejected the strict conditions I laid out for him? Does he assume I will come running? Because I fully intend to!

Those words chimed in her heart more than any love poem. Dash them all.

“Dash them all!” Harriet said aloud, laughing at the sheer joy of life and freedom, “dash Beecham! Dash Ralph! I am going to live life and enjoy it!”

The answer to her affirmation was a tap at the door that made her jump.

“Yes?” she called.

“ Beecham , my lady,” came the reply.

“Go away, Beecham. I am changing,” she groused, looking down at the sketch once more.

He must have had pencil and paper on his person. The man who disavowed being an artist carried the tools of an artist with him.

I see you, Jeremy. I see the man behind the facade of the feckless rake.

“I have written to His Lordship in Paris, Lady Harriet,” Beecham intoned from the other side.

That made Harriet stride to the door and fling it wide.

“You have? On what matter?” she demanded.

“Regretfully, your behavior, Lady Harriet. I feel his Lordship should know how you have flouted his rules and sought to escape my observance.”

Harriet lifted her chin, seeing in the stolid servant in front of her a ball and chain such as prisoners bore.

He is Ralph's means of keeping me chained. I know both men think they have my best interests at heart, but I am done with pretending obedience. Time is short!

“Very well, Beecham. You have done what you deem is right, and I will do the same,” Harriet said defiantly.

“I think I must ask that you do not leave your room until we are ready to leave for Oaksgrove,” the butler continued.

“Very well. I shall be ready to leave then.”

Harriet closed the door and put her back to it.

I shall be ready to leave, indeed, but it will be to go to the Royal Theater, Drury Lane. Most certainly not Oaksgrove.