Page 3 of Secrets of a Duke’s Heart (Wayward Dukes’ Alliance #25)

CHAPTER THREE

D on’t look at her.

Jude kept his gaze fastened resolutely on the horizon, but it was no use. Miss Penfirth’s soggy clothing only emphasized her soft curves. Worse, her nipples had pebbled into hard beads that could not be restrained by however many layers of cotton and silk. The subtle bumps were there, and he could not stop picturing the hue of those hidden, puckered buds, or how those lush globes would fill his hands…

“Harriet?” Miss Penfirth prompted, bringing him rudely back to the present. “Have you always liked babies?”

Jude cleared his throat. “Yes, possibly. Harriet is the only one I have ever had much contact with.

“I was seventeen and home from school for the summer when she was born. Everyone acted like Pamela, my sister and Harriet’s mother, was too innocent to know better than to be seduced by a stable hand. To my parents, it was all the conniving lad’s fault. She was so tiny and fragile, too young to have offended a soul, yet everyone acted as though her existence was her own fault,” he said darkly. “Pam acted like she had nothing to do with it. Once the boy was gone, she carried on as if she’d never borne a child out of wedlock.”

“What happened to the father?”

“He was dismissed from service as soon as Pamela’s pregnancy was known. We took great pains to conceal her condition. I learned he’d died some years later. I doubt he ever knew he had sired a daughter with a—” He caught himself before the word duchess could fall from his lips. “A lady,” he amended.

That fall, he’d gone off to university, but he still thought of Harriet every day. By the time he arrived home at Christmas, she was so different yet still so sweet. With his father in decline, his studies had been cut short a few months later. By then, Harriet had been sent to live with distant relatives. Pamela was on the marriage mart, flirting her way into the hearts of every man who would pay her the slightest attention. The duty of finding her a suitable husband therefore fell to him.

Had Harriet’s existence become common knowledge, the Montague name would have been besmirched. His other siblings might have struggled to attract suitable partners. Secrecy was paramount.

Thus, everyone had suffered the consequences of her actions except Pamela. She married a marquess and bore him four boys. If she ever thought about her daughter, it was with rancor. She rarely visited, and each time left Harriet’s heart crushed.

Jude never forgot the charming little girl his sister had abandoned. As soon as was feasible, he’d brought her back to live at Acton Heath as his ward. Miss Penfirth’s absurd notion that Harriet might have concocted a scheme to run away cut to the quick.

Why, then, did he have a sinking feeling that she might be onto something?

He didn’t believe it. Harriet was a sensible girl. He had given her a choice and she had made the responsible decision.

Feelings didn’t rate in a discussion of marriage. Feelings were foolish impulses that led one to do things like have premarital relations with a boy who groomed horses for a living, and then abandoning one’s child out of shame. The last time he had allowed himself to experience an emotion had been the day he held newborn Harriet…and a quarter hour ago with the Davies’ infant daughter in his arms.

He was getting soft in his old age. Nearly forty and yet unmarried. His reaction to a stranger’s child must be a sign that it was time for him to settle down. He had an inheritance to secure, after all. Raising Harriet had given him the illusion of fatherhood, but it was past time he found his own suitable match.

Miss Penfirth was not in the running. No matter what kind of feelings she stirred in him. Lust was not an emotion.

“Once this rain lets up, I think we should go into town.” Miss Penfirth interrupted his thoughts.

“Tonight? Why?”

“To inquire at the Cock and Bull.”

“There is no need. I was there. I can tell you everything you need to know,” he said.

“You are a stranger in Cavalier Cove.” She stared out across the soggy field. A gust of wind fluttered her skirts and plastered them to her legs. They were very shapely, her legs. The sprigged linen had turned nearly transparent, the wet fabric clinging to her thighs. Which reminded him that ladies wore nothing beneath the layers of their skirts. Hike them up by the fistful and one could?—

Enough.

She appeared unbothered by his scrutiny. Perhaps she was unaware. That made one of them. He was entirely too aware of his physical interest in her.

Jude shifted uncomfortably. The cold and damp did nothing to diminish the thickening of his cock. He tugged his greatcoat firmly into place, not that there was any chance of her noticing his increasingly dire condition through so many layers.

The cool, wet weather ought to have a dampening effect, he thought sourly.

There he stood, silently willing his willy to cooperate.

Miss Penfirth stared resolutely ahead, uncaring of her drooping bonnet, those bright intelligent eyes trained on the field. If he turned slightly to the right, and she angled her body just so, their lips would meet…

“It’s letting up,” she interrupted his runaway thoughts. The effect should have been a bucket of cold water dousing his arousal. Instead, her melodious voice sent his cock to painfully optimistic new lengths.

He blew out a breath and watched the steam dissipate.

“Well, then, shall we?” Miss Penfirth started out into the field.

“It’s still raining.”

“You’re very observant, Mr. Montague. However, we cannot stand here all evening. There are limits to how much time even I, a spinster, can spend alone with a strange gentleman.”

Was it his imagination or was there a note of brittle bitterness in her tone? She had been cheerfully efficient all afternoon.

Reluctantly, he abandoned his shelter and followed her.

* * *

If Clarissa had to endure one more agonizing second of Mr. Montague’s sullen intensity, she was going to lose her temper. She was accustomed to dealing with men who delighted in making her uncomfortable. Men who belittled her by pretending to ogle the spinster and then laughed to their friends—they were easy to handle. One smart rejoinder usually set them on their back foot, and turning their tired, stupid jokes on them finished it. Like a boxer’s punch and jab. They always left her alone after that.

But Mr. Montague’s attention had been different. More potent. He made no snide remark for her to counter, and this flustered her. He loomed beside her, taller than most of the men she had seen, and broad-shouldered. If not for his expression, which looked like he’d been forced to eat a lemon, she might have said he was watching her with genuine interest.

But that was only her self-delusion getting in the way of common sense.

“You must be very tired after your ordeal,” she said brightly when he caught up to her.

“I cannot rest until Harriet is found.”

“It seems quite clear she will not be found tonight.”

The glare he leveled at her made her quicken her stride. Mud sucked at her boots with each step.

“I don’t mean to be insensitive. I am a pragmatist. If you are dead set against returning to the Cock and Bull Inn, then there is nothing more to be done tonight but eat our supper and go to bed.”

Warmth rose to her cheeks at the word “bed.” She was not ignorant of the facts of life. There had been a time in her youth when she was keen to experience lovemaking. Now, that memory returned in a rush. Though she knew better, her innards turned fluttery and hot.

What was happening to her?

How could she make it stop?