The Duke's Tattoo: A Regency Romance of Love and Revenge, Though Not in That Order (19 page)

“A pleasant man, Captain Dorset,” Lady Abingdon observed.

“Yes, he is,” Prudence replied.

“He does not vex you in the least,” she added, studying her companion.

“No, not at all,” Prudence agreed.

Shortly after Captain Dorset left, Ainsworth and vexation returned.

“Lady Abingdon, I would have another dance with Miss Haversham,” he said with a slight bow, looking thunderous.

“I fear I cannot dance as well as your other partners,” Prudence replied coolly, recalling how he smiled while strutting like a peacock with Lady Jane Babcock. She considered claiming fatigue to sit out the next dance.

“I’ll enjoy it anyway.”

“Oh, Ainsworth! Not very gallant of you,” Lady Abingdon cried.

“It would be no kindness to trample your feet again,” Prudence averred.

“You’re too slight to maim me permanently,” the duke retorted. “I’ll risk it.”

• • •

Hope caught fire in Ainsworth’s chest. If only his dancing with Lady Jane caused Prudence Haversham half the jealousy he choked on while she danced with that soggy biscuit Captain Dorset. Infernal Navy, what use were they anyway! Besides Trafalgar that is, but that was a decade ago. Miss Haversham smiled repeatedly at the captain, the duke noted with disgust as he stalked aimlessly in their vicinity and danced with whomever he must to keep her in sight.

Addressing Lady Abingdon, the duke continued, “Thanks to Miss Haversham, I’ve recovered my strength. Though other insults to the flesh will be a permanent handicap.”

Miss Haversham glared at him. Glared! But then one did have to admire her stormy eyes and her soft, parted lips…He tore his eyes from her. If the musicians didn’t start their playing soon, his attraction to her would become scandalously apparent.

“Enough jousting you two. Be off! I shall enjoy seeing you dance together,” Lady Abingdon ordered with a flick of her fan.

The duke offered Miss Haversham his arm and led her away. Despite the multitude of dancers awaiting the music’s first notes, the room telescoped to just one petite woman barely resting her gloved fingertips on his forearm. When the opening bars of music set everyone in motion, the duke spun her into the tumult.

“You’re subdued, Miss Haversham, does my dancing displease you?”

“Of course not, Your Grace.” She did not look at him or smile.

“You smile easily enough at your leathery naval officer. Why play sphinx with me?”

“Leathery? I find him handsome. And I know very well what you’re about. Dancing a second waltz with me!”

“Where’s the harm?”

“You hope to make Lady Jane jealous and I’d rather not be a party to your mischief,” she huffed.

“So, you prefer I waltz with Lady Jane,” he goaded.

“I have no preference in the matter, Your Grace. But if you intend to marry her, then yes, I would.”

“Ah, sweet, maddening nymph,” he murmured as he pulled her close and spun her adroitly. “She is not for me but she’s prodigiously useful.” She raised her face and he itched to kiss away the skepticism he found in her expression: her puckered brow, her narrowed eyes, and her pursed lips. “Perhaps you gleaned her proprietary attitude toward my marriage prospects.”

“Though she was subtle, I had some sense of it, yes.” Miss Haversham’s mouth quirked up at the corner and he rejoiced.

“I’ve given her no cause for expectations, on my word, yet she fends off other would-be duchesses admirably. I remain safe from the majority and need only keep her at arm’s length.”

“You’ve focused the threat. A clever tactic, Your Grace.”

With a slight smile, Ainsworth said, “I flatter myself to think I can manage Lady Jane Babcock and the rest.”

“You must find it flattering to be so desired that you need a strategy to cope with a multitude.”

“I never aspired to popularity, Miss Haversham. Just as I never aspired to the title. I would forfeit all of it in a heartbeat — every groat — to have my brother back.”

“You loved him a great deal,” she said, her sympathy sincere.

“He was, I assure you, the best of men. None finer.”

“I believe you,” she said and let him hold her closer still.

She was lithe and alive in his arms and he wished the waltz would continue for the rest of the night. Too soon, the music faded and Ainsworth bowed to her. When he drew her hand through the crook of his arm, he noticed how well his mother’s cabochon sapphire ring would look on her third finger. He led her back to the dowager countess.

As they walked to the far side of the ballroom, he spoke low, “Tomorrow, I return to London so I’ll take my leave of you for now.”

“You must look forward to resuming your life, Your Grace,” she said with careful nonchalance.

“I have matters to attend, yes. But this won’t be the end of our acquaintance. Not by a long shot.” He placed his large, warm hand over hers to possess it as they wound around the knots of people. “You’ll be surprised when I return.”

“Surprised? I’d be astonished if you returned at all, Your Grace,” she murmured.

“Then I shall. The prospect of astonishing you tempts me mightily.”

Miss Haversham slowed and whispered up to him, “You’ve already astonished me with your forgiveness and I am sincerely grateful, Your Grace. I wish you safe travels.” She slipped her hand from his grasp when they reached Lady Abingdon. The sensation of her touch lingered at the crook of his arm. Her small hand nestled there felt somehow perfectly right.

• • •

“I must say I’m quite done in. Shall I see you home, Prudence?” Lady Abingdon looked exhausted in truth. “It’s been an entertaining evening, has it not?”

Prudence could only nod as she helped her ladyship to her feet.

He said farewell
.

She gulped around the lump in her throat. Surely, he had no intention to return, only to tease her with the possibility, just as he had with a kiss.
Provoking man.

Once in her room, Prudence removed her gloves and stood before a tall mirror and took stock objectively. The spinster of seven and twenty she saw in the candlelight discouraged her somewhat. Her hair was dark brown, not fashionably blonde. Her eyes functioned well enough; she didn’t have to squint or wear spectacles to see, but however much he quizzed her, they were nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing like Lady Jane Babcock’s wide, fashionably cornflower blue eyes. Her neck was acceptable, but not a swan’s. At least her skin wasn’t spotty or freckled.

Her lips were, well, men seemed to stare at them a great deal. But she wasn’t sure how to interpret the attention. They might be thinking ‘Such great, loose fish lips!’ as she sometimes thought about the vicar, who had an enormous, slack mouth. Her lips weren’t sloppy but they were over-f, or so she suspected.

Prudence placed her hands beneath her bodice and pushed up to see if her bosom could look as full and enticing as Lady Jane’s. But no. She didn’t own the kind of brief corset
³
that plumped and fluffed one’s attributes or a ‘divorce’ to separate them. Her stays were practical affairs that laced in front, allowing her to put them on and take them off without assistance.

Her best ball gown was passable. Ribbons twined artfully around and around just under her breasts to create the bodice. But again, its actual silhouette was loose, allowing her to remove it by herself at the end of a night. Still, the dove gray figured silk fabric was the best she could afford at a fashionable Mayfair draper two years ago. In Mrs. Mason’s skilled hands, it didn’t look homemade but it was never the
dernier cri
.

Prudence felt a tickle in her nose.
No crying!

Absolutely no sniveling, she upbraided herself, not about anything so superficial as one’s physical appearance or silly, romantic disappointment. She never let herself mope much less weep over anything so inconsequential, no matter what. Ever.

It took a few moments more for the duke’s good-bye to settle in. When it did, she felt the full impact of all she had done without over the years.

She did without a mother to take her to a Milsom Street modiste for gowns, and the social whirl of her first Season and young men courting her. And her father, who would never walk her down the aisle or give her into the care of another loving, honorable man.

A trickle of moisture spilled from her eyes.

She would never have the comfort of a man’s love or the chaos of a young family. And she most certainly would never again have an adventure as rash — or as exciting — as tattooing the Duke of Ainsworth. Here, she gave a soggy chuckle. What an adventure it was! The circumstances of their acquaintance notwithstanding, she would miss him more than was sensible. But that was no cause for tears. She was foolish to have developed a tendre for the man. She would learn to do without him; she would have years to make the adjustment.

The trickle grew to a steady, lachrymose stream.

How long would it take for her sadness to ease? How long must she wait to forget a man who would’ve been her ideal, were he not who he was? The answer: too long. But wait she must.

With a gulp and a small wail, she gave in to wracking sobs.

Prudence rarely, if ever, cried. But on those rare occasions when she did cry, it was not to weep. Her crying was not at all delicate, restrained or picturesque. Hers was a full-blown, snot-discharging, eye-swelling and nose-reddening deluge of despair. So she turned away from the looking glass with her hands over her face rather than see the results on it.

“I thought you’d be abed by now.”

“Oh!” Prudence jumped with a waterlogged gasp when the Duke of Ainsworth addressed her from the window.

Distracted as she’d been, she hadn’t noticed the window sash behind her slide up or the slight scrape of a boot swinging over the sill. He’d changed from formal, full dress to the rough clothes and loose coat he wore for scaling her ivy.

“We already said good-bye, Your Grace,” she responded in a voice clotted with grief. She spun away to hide her misery and the sloppy, red havoc it wrought on her face. She swiped an impatient hand over each eye and wiped the moisture on her gown without thinking. A second too late she grumbled through her sniffles, “Drat! Water spots.”

“You left your window open,” he said, moving closer. “What was I to do?”

“How thoughtless of me,” she whispered, her head bowed.

“Pondering your many charms?”

“Hardly,” she snuffled and turned to face him. His expression was priceless — a look of horror mingled with an obvious desire to escape. (His eyes bulged and darted from her face to the window and back several times.) If she hadn’t been so miserable, she would’ve laughed.

Cautiously, he held out a monogrammed handkerchief. Their bare fingers barely brushed. He opened his arms to her but she wavered where she stood, wishing though not daring to close the distance. She made liberal, voluble use of his linen pocket square instead.

“What’s wrong?” He let his arms fall to his side. “How may I help?”

Help?
Prudence wanted him to help himself. To her. She wanted to walk into the circle of his brawny arms and let him do as he pleased. That is, if he pleased. (Given her current appearance, he probably wouldn’t.) If they kissed, no one would ever know. He would be gone in the morning. And for once in her life, Prudence wanted a taste of brazen passion. How did one suggest it? She fidgeted with the bow tied below her bodice.

“Let me help you,” he reiterated.

“I can manage on my own, if you’ll excuse me.” She moved toward the corner where a folding screen stood.

It was a miracle, she mused. The shock of his appearance stopped up her nasal passages, opened her throat and dried her tears. Her eyes and nose still shone bright red but she was otherwise able to conduct a rational conversation.

“Please.” Ainsworth threw off his loose coat and intercepted her. “Allow me.”

“I’ll be fine. Thank you, Your Grace.”

“Do you doubt my abilities as lady’s maid?” The duke pretended to take umbrage.

“Of course not. I’ve often thought a lady’s maid ought to be hulking, overbearing and male,” she said with a soggy chuckle.

He looked relieved that her tears had passed like a cloudburst and her humor reappeared. She felt her grief welling back up inside. If he didn’t wish to witness an operatically messy encore he’d better leave soon, she fretted.

He approached cautiously. Her breath caught. She knew full well she shouldn’t allow such liberties. Lady’s maid, indeed! How he enjoyed making her blush and stammer.

He touched her. He stroked her arms, gentling her like a skittish foal. He tucked her under his chin and held her. Soon his hands moved over her shoulders and down her back slowly.

The sensation of being enfolded in his embrace soothed Prudence’s jumpy nerves. He intended nothing untoward by his caresses, she knew, and this made her chafe at her life’s limitations all the more. He made her wish for indecent things, made her want to be wanton. She would happily throw caution and propriety into the Avon if only he let his hands roam all over her.

The pleasure of his touch was vastly amplified because Prudence never had this kind of contact with a man, much less one so big, muscular and male. No one had ever touched her in passion — discounting, of course, the previous duke’s drunken fondling. In turn, she touched only to heal, to assist, to produce practical results. (Well, that was true until she laid hands on the duke. Touching him had been pleasurable in an entirely unprofessional way.)

The duke’s caresses ignited her skin wherever he stroked her. His gentleness left her weak and swaying in his arms while the heat radiating from his hands threatened to consume her. How she wanted to burn, to be consumed by his fire, and to float away as ashes in the wind!

Before she lost her courage, she reached up with both hands, pulled his head down and kissed him.

• • •

When he climbed through the window, Ainsworth hadn’t expected to find the indomitable Miss Haversham crying — bawling! — at her reflection in a mirror. She was miserable. What could he say? He of all men had no words at the ready to make amends, assuming he was at fault. He had only unsettled emotions and chaotic desires regarding Miss Prudence Haversham.