Page 5 of Don’t Let Your Dukes Grow Up To Be Scoundrels (Dukes in Disguise #1)

Chapter Five

Gemma had observed many a sunrise in London, tumbling out of her carriage after a night of revelry to trip up the marble steps of Ashbourn House and fall into bed.

It was a much less pleasant experience, viewing the gradual break of daylight from the too-narrow bed where she’d been trying for hours, unsuccessfully, to sleep. Groaning, she closed her eyes against the gray morning light glaring in through the curtainless window. Finally, fitfully, she dozed off.

When Gemma awoke again, two hours later, she felt hardly any more rested than she had at dawn. But she dragged herself from the thin mattress with a yawn and a shiver as her bare feet touched the cold wood floor. “Wake up, Lucy.”

No response. Gemma sighed and went to the washstand to splash frigid water on her face and clean her teeth. Still shivering, she turned back to the still form on the bed.

“Lucy, come along. There’s so much to do, we must make a start.”

Groaning, Lucy burrowed under the threadbare blanket on the bed she and Gemma had shared. Aside from the rain pounding on the roof right over their heads and the concerning drip-drop of a leak somewhere in the vicinity that they absolutely could not afford to fix, Lucy and her restless feet were the main reason for Gemma’s inability to sleep.

So she had no compunction about striding around to Lucy’s side of the bed and whisking the blankets off her sister’s curled up form. Lucy shrieked in dismay and kicked out at Gemma, who dodged it easily after the hours of practice she’d just had.

“Get up,” she told Lucy ruthlessly as she shoved her arms into her muslin wrapper and belted the sash tightly over her nightrail. “I’m going to check on Mama.”

Henrietta was in the room next door. Both rooms had been rendered somewhat more livable last night, with Bess’s assistance. That meant sheets on the beds, a merrily crackling fire that had long since gone out, and the best dinner Gemma could honestly remember eating in her entire life. Nothing but a simple chicken soup with vegetables, but somehow it had been so savory and rich and light and nourishing. Remembering the way Lucy had stuck her head right into the bowl to lick it clean, Gemma grinned and played her trump card.

“If you get up now, perhaps you’ll be in time to see what Bess has made for breakfast.”

Lucy popped up, eyes wide. “Good point. I’ll get dressed.”

With her sister rousted from bed, Gemma went to the door and opened it a sliver to peer into the hallway.

She sighed. She’d held out a forlorn hope that the upstairs rooms of Five Mile House might look better in the daylight, but if anything, the reverse was true. Pitted, rutted wood floors, dust everywhere, a cobweb or two strung under the eaves—the place looked sad and worn out. Hopeless.

Gemma attempted for a moment to imagine one of her London friends, someone like the Duke of Thornecliff, willingly setting foot in this place.

No, it was no use.

Gemma had never bothered much with imagination. She preferred to accept and enjoy the reality of her life exactly as it was.

Well, that would have to change. Perhaps it was no more than a fantasy to expect that she could turn this dilapidated old inn into a fashionable place where the leaders of the Ton would want to be seen, but that fantasy was all Gemma had at the moment.

A fantasy, and a family that relied on her.

Seeing no one in the hall, Gemma tiptoed hurriedly next door to her mother’s room. She found Henrietta still abed, apparently sleeping more soundly than Gemma had managed. Gemma watched her mother for a moment, the gentle rise and fall of her chest and the lines on her face that one didn’t notice so much when Henrietta was awake. The depths of her grief showed in her still, slumbering countenance, a silent suffering that tore at Gemma’s heart.

Unwilling to wake her mother from whatever rest she could get, Gemma slipped back into the hall and returned to the room she and Lucy had shared only to find it empty.

Lucy’s shift was tossed carelessly over the foot of the rumpled bed. Her trunk was open, the floor around it strewn with ribbons and discarded gowns and pinafores. Gemma’s trunk was open, as well, the clothing inside disarranged from her search through it last night for her night clothes. It gave the whole room a look of chaos and disruption that made Gemma frown.

With a sudden shock, Gemma realized there was no one coming to tidy up the mess they’d made.

They had no servants. Bess had been an enormous help thus far, but as Hal Deveril, the most insolent, insufferable man in the county, had been so quick to point out, Bess was overworked as it was. She certainly didn’t have the time to take over as ladies’ maid for three women.

If Gemma wanted this mess removed, she’d have to pick it up herself.

Her stomach rumbled, and Gemma wondered if she might put off tidying until after breakfast. Until she realized that with her mother asleep and Lucy presumably already stuffing rolls into her face, there was no one to help Gemma lace up her stays. Lucy wore a short corset, light and easy to do up oneself, but with Gemma’s more generous proportions, she could never get away with that.

No doubt Lucy had assumed Henrietta and Gemma could help each other to dress, Gemma surmised glumly. But now she must loiter about in their rooms, helpless, until either Lucy returned or their mother awoke. She certainly couldn’t appear in the public areas of the inn in her nightrail.

Fine , she grumbled to herself, if I’m stuck here anyway, I might as well try to do something useful.

She knelt down by the trunks to begin putting them to rights. She folded and smoothed and rearranged and finally ended by sitting on the damned things, but she could not make them close properly.

Giving up with an exasperated huff, Gemma blew a lock of hair out of her eyes and shivered a bit. The chill of the night air still inhabited the stones surrounding the fireplace and seeped into her bare feet from the floorboards.

Her gaze fell on the brass tinderbox set out on the simple mantelpiece. How lovely it would be to have a small fire going when Lucy returned, Gemma thought. She bit her lip. She’d seen hundreds of fires lit by countless maids, though she hadn’t paid much attention to how they went about it. But she’d watched closely as Bess used the flint and char cloth to light the fire the night before, and it had only taken her a few deft motions and a puff or two of air.

The memory rose up of Hal’s gorgeous, sneering mouth saying that lighting her own fire was no doubt beyond Gemma, and she tightened her jaw.

How hard could it be?

Ten minutes later, Gemma was forced to admit that lighting a fire was quite a bit trickier than it seemed.

First she’d struggled to strike the flint with the right force to create a spark, and then it had taken her ages to realize she needed to breathe the spark to life on the char cloth before attempting to transfer it to the nest of tinder she’d laid in the coals of the hearth. Once she finally managed that, in her eagerness she blew out the spark and had to start all over again.

Helpless despair washed over her. She slumped against the hearth. She couldn’t do it. This one, simple, basic act of daily life was beyond her.

Hell and damnation, she couldn’t even pack a trunk properly, and now this?

Frustration bubbled up in Gemma’s chest, a bitter wave of emotion that clawed open the locked box of her grief, fear, and anger. A harsh, dry sob wrenched out of her. So angry her hands shook, Gemma crashed the flint against the char cloth-covered stone again, and this time…it sparked. A tiny spark, but there and alive, and Gemma gulped back a cry of relief in time to blow gently across the cloth. The spark glowed brighter and sent up a promising trickle of smoke.

Before she could overthink it, Gemma held the bright spark to the nest of tinder in the hearth and knelt close to blow gently on it some more.

“Come on,” she whispered between breaths, all her senses trained on this one, small task that had suddenly assumed a monumental importance in her life. If she could learn this new skill and persevere and actually succeed in making a fire, then maybe, just maybe, there was the smallest chance that?—

Between one breath and the next, flames burst forth, licking along the tinder and burning it black.

With a jerk, Gemma sat up and covered her mouth with one trembling hand. She’d done it! She’d actually managed it. Take that, Hal Deveril!

She wanted to whoop like a child and dance out into the hallway, calling for her mother and sister and anyone else in the vicinity to come and admire her lovely, beautiful little fire that was even now catching along the half-burnt pieces of wood and beginning to crackle cheerfully. But of course she was much too worldly and dignified for that.

Still, relief and happiness, along with hunger and lack of sleep, made her almost giddy. It was only when she moved to stand that she realized how long she’d been folded over on her knees in that awkward position.

Her legs protested, her lower back aching with a fierce twinge, and she stumbled a little too close to the fire just as a particularly large spark burst, casting a red-hot ember onto the hem of her nightgown.

In less than an instant, the fine lawn cloth was aflame. Gemma shrieked and staggered away from the fire, rustling her skirts frantically in an attempt to smother the flames as heat seared along her bare calves in a terrifying blast.

She screamed again, and her door banged against the wall as someone flung it open and rushed into her room.

“Help,” she cried desperately, shrugging out of her linen wrapper and using it to beat at the smoldering nightgown.

Footsteps thundered toward her, and in the next second, she felt the blessed shock of water drench her from the waist down.

Before she could even look up to see who’d had the presence of mind to grab the pitcher from the washbasin, a wall fell on her.

At least, that’s what it felt like. Hard, unyielding arms came around her tightly and bore her down to the floor, rolling them both back and forth while Gemma gasped for air and clutched at the broad, muscled back of the man who’d rescued her.

“Stop,” she wheezed, whacking at his shoulders so feebly her fists probably felt like the flutter of a bird’s wings to him, but all the strength seemed to have drained from her in the moment her burning nightdress sputtered out. She was emptied like a husk, the only thing tethering her to the earth the weight of his body. “You can stop. I’m all right.”

The man finally stopped moving, and Gemma opened eyes she didn’t remember closing to see…of course. Who else? Who would she least prefer to find her in such a ridiculous situation? Her bloody nemesis.

Hal.

“You’re all right,” he repeated roughly, and Gemma flushed.

“There’s no need to take that tone with me,” she said crossly. “I’m not going to burst into tears or some such nonsense. I never cry.”

He stared down at her with something wild in his forest-green eyes. That errant lock of dark chestnut hair had fallen over his tanned brow again, and behind his short beard, his jaw was set as though he were grinding his teeth.

Every part of him that touched her was hard. And hot. Gemma became aware as her embarrassment faded that there were many, many parts of him touching all along her reclining form.

He shifted, only slightly, but the movement made one thick, muscular thigh settle more deeply between her legs. The pressure against her softness both tormented and soothed Gemma, and she felt an overpowering urge to tilt her hips to get more of it.

A new kind of heat rushed in to fill the emptiness inside her, a simmering, shimmering heat that was every bit as dangerous as the flames that had almost singed her skin.

The wildness hadn’t left his eyes. In fact, it had spread to his hands, where they gripped her shoulders and pulled her closer so that the tips of her breasts brushed his chest. The thin fabric of her nightshift was no barrier at all, and the sensation went through Gemma like a bolt of lightning. She gasped. Her head fell back and her legs worked restlessly as she tried to lift herself even closer.

The scent of him wrapped around her, the sweetness of fresh hay and sun-warmed leather overtaking the scorched smell of burnt fabric.

“You,” he rasped, his rough voice scraping over her raw nerves in a shivery rush. He shook his head slowly, as if he was trying to return to sanity, and Gemma reacted.

She wasn’t ready to go back to reality. She wasn’t ready to let go of this delicious feeling just yet. So she did the only thing she could think of to prolong it.

Gemma got one hand around the back of his taut neck, her fingers curling into the lush silk of the hair at his nape, and she pulled his head down to meet his lips with a kiss.

* * *

Hal felt the kiss in every corner of his frame. With a simple brush of lips, it was as though she kissed his neck, his shoulders, behind his knees, along his inner thighs…his muscles coiled and tensed and his mind contained nothing but the swell of her soft breasts against his chest and the grip of her dainty fingers against his nape.

The image of her below him, every rounded curve of her delectable body outlined by the translucently fine fabric of her shift, was forever seared into his memory. On the heels of the fear he’d felt when he’d heard her scream and the panicked rush to get to her side, it was almost too much. But still, he could have resisted the dark urges their sudden, shocking closeness brought forth—until she’d arched her head back and exposed the slim column of her throat.

The rapid flutter of her heartbeat clearly visible in the tender hollow. The heavy-lidded look of slumbrous desire she’d leveled at him from under her lashes. The faint, subtle twisting of her hips as she sought more and deeper sensation from him—perhaps not even aware of the movements she was making.

Certainly, she could not know what she was doing to him with those pulses of her softness against the jutting, angry ache of his hardness.

Or perhaps she was well aware.

We London girls know what to do in the dark.

The thought inflamed him. Hal tilted his head and took her mouth more deeply. She met him kiss for kiss, her eager response driving Hal to new heights of desire.

Their lips clung as Hal’s tongue plunged into her, mimicking the way his cock wanted to thrust into her honeyed core. Imagining it turned Hal into a mindless animal, desperate for bare skin, and he skimmed one hand along the glorious curve of her waist and hips to gather the hem of the clothing that barred his way.

The fabric was wet. And not in the sexy way—in a cold, clammy way that instantly shocked him back into his right mind.

Water. He’d thrown water on her, because her dress was on fire.

What the hell was he doing?

Hal lifted away from her, despite the clutch of her fingers and the displeased noise she made in her throat.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, the words harsh with self-recrimination. “I should have checked.”

She sighed, dropping her arms to cross over her chest and thunking her head down on the floor. “I’m fine. I told you I was fine.”

Hal struggled for a moment, torn between his instinctive need to see for himself that the smooth, creamy skin of her legs was unmarked, and the knowledge that he absolutely could not reach down and lift her skirts if she didn’t want him to.

And clearly, the moment when she might’ve wanted him to lift her skirts was past, he recognized glumly as Gemma pushed herself up to sit. She wouldn’t even look at him, choosing instead to fuss with the waves of dark hair that had been disordered by—God, by Hal’s hands running through the silken strands and tangling them around his fingers while he devoured her mouth like a starving man.

Coming to his feet, Hal offered her a hand and only clenched his jaw a little when she ignored it in favor of rising on her own to stand, straight-backed and as dignified as it was possible to be in bare feet and a damp, bedraggled nightgown.

Still not looking at him, she said, “Thank you for your kind assistance, Mr. Deveril. I’m certain I would have had the fire out myself in a moment, but you were certainly very quick on your feet. How lucky you happened to be passing by just at that moment.”

Were they really going to do this? Pretend that monumental kiss hadn’t happened? Hal gritted his teeth, chest heaving with the words he wanted to say but wouldn’t allow himself.

She was offering him an escape, a way to rectify the terrible mistake he’d made by ever touching her. He should take it and be grateful.

He should be grateful she didn’t know he was a duke, or he’d find himself halfway down the aisle before he knew what he was about.

Feeling decidedly ungrateful, Hal ground out, “It was no coincidence. I was coming upstairs to escort you down to breakfast. I wanted a few words with you before the work of the day begins.”

“Oh. Well. As you can see, I’m not yet ready to receive visitors, so if you wouldn’t mind waiting downstairs…” She paused delicately, color flooding her cheeks. “And if you could send Lucy up to assist me.”

She gestured vaguely in the direction of a pair of large trunks, bulging with the frills and fripperies ladies of her sort seemed to find necessary. Hal’s sister-in-law had employed a small army of maids to lace her into her daily finery. No doubt Lady Gemma was missing the experience of being waited on hand and foot, petted and cossetted and painted and powdered to within an inch of her life.

Ignoring the impulse to offer to help with her clothes himself—not only would it be beyond inappropriate, but he also wasn’t certain he could trust himself to put her clothes on instead of taking them off —Hal contained himself to a tight nod and started for the door.

He reached for the knob, but her soft voice stopped him.

“And, Mr. Deveril. I’m sure we agree that no one needs to know about what happened here this morning.”

Despite the fact that it was exactly what Hal had been thinking, he felt his temper flare. “Oh, do we?”

“It would be embarrassing for me,” she went on, as if unaware of how that sounded. “And I wouldn’t want my mother and sister to worry. After all, nothing really happened.”

Nothing really happened.

To her, that kiss, a kiss that had shaken Hal to his foundations, was nothing.

“You might have thought of that before you kissed me,” he said, slanting her an unimpressed look.

“What?” She blinked as though surprised. “No, not the kiss. I meant the bit about when my shift got accidentally the teensiest bit scorched. If my mother heard about that, she’d fret every time I was in a room with an open flame for the rest of my life. And if Lucy got wind of it—well. It’s not to be thought of. I should never hear the end of it.”

“Whereas they should think nothing of you having a liaison with a servant, I suppose.”

“Well, they have met you,” she pointed out, her tone as reasonable and matter-of-fact as a professor giving a lecture. “I don’t think they’d be surprised I was unable to resist.”

Hal scowled. “Aren’t you the least bit concerned about—” He paused, groping for the right words.

“My reputation?” Gemma gave a faint smile that was more a quirk of her pretty lips than an expression of true amusement. “My maidenly virtue?”

“Yes!”

She shrugged. “Not especially. Leaving aside the fact that we’re miles away from London and anyone whose opinion I might care for, I’m hardly some dainty little debutante making her first appearance at Court. I’ve been out for ages, long enough to almost set me on the shelf if I weren’t a duke’s daughter. I assure you, I’m past the first blush of…well, anything that might make me blush.”

Hal felt a sudden, acute awareness of the chasm between them—Lady Gemma, with her dashing, sophisticated attitude and all her experience of decadent London on one side, and himself on the other.

An impoverished younger son who was never meant to be duke, who’d spent most of his life rusticating in the country and despising every aristocrat he met.

He wasn’t a monk, by any means. He’d gone to university, after all, and nearly drowned himself in depravity before Jonathan had gotten hold of him and sorted him out. But here at home, it was rare for Hal to meet a woman who either hadn’t known him since he was in leading strings, or whose livelihood didn’t depend on him in some way. Neither circumstance made for an appealing bed partner, and besides, he’d been too focused on his goal of rebuilding the village and the estate to allow himself the indulgence. His own right hand would suffice until he had fulfilled his vows and was able to offer a woman something other than empty coffers and a manor house falling down around her ears.

In the meantime, this conversation was a perfect reminder of why Lady Gemma and her family needed to leave town as quickly as possible.

Hal was committed to his purpose, but he was no saint. If he was offered enough temptation in the form of Lady Gemma Lively’s fiery kisses and slaying looks, he would break. And if that happened…there would be no turning back.

He would be trapped. Doomed to the same sort of regret-ridden, acrimonious union that had overshadowed his own childhood, made his mother and sister-in-law wretched, and reduced his father and his brother to their worst selves.

Making his voice cold to counteract the still-coursing heat of his blood, Hal said, “You may not care what anyone in Little Kissington thinks of you, but I will have to live here long after you’ve flitted off back to London. So I would appreciate it if you could keep your kisses to yourself and leave me in peace.”

She had the temerity to shrug those lovely, smooth shoulders, as though none of this mattered to her in the slightest. “I’m sure you are right, Mr. Deveril. I have my own plans to consider—they would certainly not be helped by a dalliance with a local, however handsome. And I would hate to be the cause of damage to your reputation as a fine, upstanding, honorable barkeep.”

A chill washed through him. Hal’s grip tightened on the doorknob, and he took a moment to crack the door to ascertain that no one was in the hall to see him emerging from the room of an unwed young lady. That done, he said over his shoulder, “I’ll send your sister up to see to you, my lady. We can discuss your plans later, when you’ve had time to compose yourself. Until then, I beg you will remember that every man is entitled to his sense of honor, whatever his station in life. Indeed, I have known men of rank who couldn’t spell the word ‘honor’ much less live up to the idea. And I have known farmers, laborers, servants and more whom I would trust with my life.”

He took one final glance at her, and was surprised by the downturned cast of her countenance. She almost looked sorry.

Hal shook off the notion; women like Lady Gemma were never sorry for anything they said or did to someone they considered beneath them. “Make no mistake, my lady. I have worked hard for the goodwill and respect of the people of this village. They matter to me, even if they are of no consequence to you. I will help you with your plans, because we share the same goal—getting you out of Little Kissington for good. I’ll play along…but I am no rich woman’s plaything, and the people here are not pawns or props for you to use.”

Her lips parted, as if she had something she wanted to say, but Hal found that he didn’t care to hear it. He strode from the room before she could do more than lift a hand. And as he went, he felt that chasm between them deepening with every heavy step.

Good , he told himself fiercely. She’s not for you. She’ll never be yours. You shouldn’t want her anyway.

Maybe if he told himself often enough, it would start to feel true.