Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
T hree days.
Horatio felt as though he were waging a war with himself. For three days, he had tried to avoid his house guests—avoid her. Juliet.
The task should have been simple enough, given that two of the three largely kept to themselves. And yet, even despite her cousin’s constant interference in his day, Juliet was impossible to ignore.
He reminded himself she had entrapped him, that her family had schemed to use his prestige for their gain. This was the child who had been persuaded to lie in order to disgrace him. A child whose words had led to Horatio being stripped of his title and exiled.
But then she had been just that, a child. Impressionable and vulnerable. Could he truly hold it against her? He exhaled heavily, book in hand, sinking deeper into the armchair in the Red Study, a secluded room in the south wing of Ravenscourt Castle.
Its mahogany flooring was burnished red, as were the cedar beams that supported its vaulted ceiling. A single chair stood before a stone fireplace with a table at its side. That table was piled with Horatio’s favorite books, the ones to which he returned time and again. Tall, narrow windows set high in the wall let shafts of sunlight fall into a room otherwise devoid of natural light.
It was his den, his lair from which he could escape company. Not that he hosted much company. But the room always made him feel safe. Now, he tried to read but his mind kept returning to the girl with the burnished red hair and bright green eyes.
Just then, a sharp thud interrupted his musings.
The door to the study flew open, and before he could bark a question, Frances Godwin stumbled in, clutching her skirts. A small, satisfied smile lit her face when she saw him.
“Ah! Your Grace,” she exclaimed, breathless. “I knew I would find you here.”
Horatio arched a brow. “And you have. For the third time today.”
“Oh, hardly.” She swept into the room with an air of practiced ease, brushing off invisible lint from her sleeve. “I have been searching for you everywhere! You are rather difficult to get a hold of.”
Not difficult enough, it seems.
Horatio crossed his arms, leaning against the edge of the desk. “For what purpose, pray?”
She held up a folded scrap of paper. “I lost my embroidery pattern. I thought I might have left it here. Mother says you spend most of your time brooding in this chamber, so I thought…” She trailed off with an artful shrug.
“Your mother is well-informed, though I can’t say I have seen any embroidery patterns lying about.” He gestured around the room. “You are welcome to search, however.”
Frances tilted her head, a playful glint in her eye. “You would not mind, then? If I disturbed your solitude?”
“So long as you don’t mind disappointment.”
She gave a light laugh, stepping closer under the guise of inspecting the desk. “I never mind disappointment. It is the anticipation I enjoy.”
Horatio resisted the urge to groan. “And what precisely do you anticipate finding here, Miss Godwin?”
She leaned closer, her perfume—a cloying mix of roses and vanilla—invading his senses. “Perhaps a deeper understanding of my host.”
“Then I am afraid your pattern is not the only thing you have misplaced.”
She laughed again, soft and melodic, and stepped back just enough to toy with the edge of a book on his desk. “You have quite the collection here. A man of letters and wit. How charming!”
“I don’t think anyone has ever accused me of being charming,” he replied dryly, plucking the book from her hand and returning it to its proper place.
“Oh, but you are,” she insisted. “In a dark and brooding way. Ladies find that irresistible, you know.”
“Do they?” He moved past her to the window, hoping the conversation would end itself if he became sufficiently uninteresting.
“Of course,” she said, following him. “You have that air of mystery about you. A man who has secrets, who has suffered.”
Horatio stared out at the wild meadow beyond the moat. “You flatter me, Miss Godwin. But my secrets are rather publicized in your circles, and my suffering is less romantic than you might imagine.”
“Still, it shapes a man. Makes him… stronger. Do you not think?”
He turned to her. “It certainly makes him disinclined to small talk.”
Her smile faltered for half a second before she recovered, placing a hand lightly on his arm. “You are too hard on yourself. Surely even a man as serious as you has moments of levity.”
“Occasionally,” he muttered, stepping out of her touch. “Usually when I am alone.”
Frances laughed, though there was a tightness to it now. “How droll. Though, I do wonder how much time you will have to yourself once you are—”
She caught herself, stopping just short of saying something she clearly wasn’t meant to. Her cheeks colored faintly, and Horatio seized the opportunity to end the conversation.
“Alas, we may never know,” he said with a slight bow. “I shall leave you to your search, Miss Godwin. Do let my butler know if your embroidery pattern turns up.”
“My wh—?”
Before she could respond, he strode past her, leaving the study and her perfumed presence behind. He doubted she had misplaced anything but her own sense of subtlety.
As he made his way down the stone corridors, his steps quickened. The encounter had left him irritated and restless. He needed air—something fresh and unscented to clear his head.
The east wing provided an escape, its tall windows offering views of the meadow and woods beyond. He was halfway down the corridor when movement outside caught his eye. He stopped at the nearest window and leaned against the frame.
Juliet.
She stood on the edge of the wildflower-strewn lawn, her hair ablaze in the sunlight. Her aunt, Lady Margaret, was seated at a table on the terrace, gesturing with sharp authority. Juliet’s posture was tense, her face turned toward the distant woods as though she longed to flee into their shadowy embrace.
Horatio’s gaze remained locked on Juliet. The world around him seemed to blur, leaving only her—bathed in sunlight, a figure of impossible grace and beauty. Her skin glowed like porcelain, her reddish-bronze hair spilling in unruly waves down her back. The distance between them did nothing to soften the intensity of her eyes, those sharp, luminous greens that seemed to see right through him.
Despite himself, he felt something stir within him—something neither irritation nor distrust. She looked so… vulnerable. And yet, when her gaze suddenly lifted to meet his through the window, it struck him with the force of a gale.
For a moment, neither moved. Her green eyes locked onto his, filled with an unreadable intensity. His pulse quickened, and he hated himself for it.
“What are you thinking?” he asked of himself and of her, “what is in your mind?”
He could neither answer for himself nor for her. Her motives were opaque and his own understanding only a little better. Their marriage would help nullify the scandal, help protect his name. But he knew that was only part of his reason for proposing it.
The idea of claiming that perfect beauty as his wife was exciting. Though he had no intention of making love to her, of consummating the marriage, the idea was intensely arousing. He wanted to. He wanted her.
She turned her head back toward Lady Margaret, breaking their shared moment, and he exhaled sharply, frustrated by his own reaction.
With a muttered curse, he spun from the window. “What the devil is wrong with me?”
The force of his movement startled a passing maid, who nearly dropped her load of linen. She let out a tiny yelp and dipped into a hasty curtsy. Horatio didn’t pause to acknowledge her, his mind too full of Juliet, of her eyes and the maddening thoughts they stirred.
Within minutes, he was leaving the castle by a small door concealed between two stone buttresses. It led to a wooden bridge, wide enough for one man to walk, which crossed the moat. On the other side was the blessed sylvan sanctuary of the woodland that surrounded Ravenscourt. He had turned away from the stables, rejecting the idea of saddling Thunder in favor of his own feet. A wander for a few hours in the trackless forest would serve to clear his mind and clarify his thoughts.
So hasty had his departure from the castle been that he had not paused to collect a coat, but walked out in waistcoat and shirt. The former was black satin, the latter white and only loosely laced against the warmth of the day. It mattered not if the dark hair on his chest was slightly visible, he didn’t intend to be in company with anyone. The squirrels and foxes would not mind if he were improperly dressed.
He wandered paths that would have been invisible to any but him and the wildlife that called the woods home. His hands brushed the feather-like fronds of tall ferns. The branches of hawthorn and yew brushed his hair and shoulders. The shade of towering birch and oak provided deep shade, the ground beneath their interlacing branches bare of growth. He saw the tracks and trails of dozens of animals, picking them out with a skill learned long ago from a woodsman of the Welsh Marches called Owain. He saw herbs amid the long grasses, their uses, and dangers a lore he had learned while wandering in the hills of Cumbria, sharing the roof of an old herbalist called Ebba, whom the locals called a witch.
At first, he had no destination, no objective other than to wander. Then he recognized the path he had unconsciously chosen and remembered where it led. He smiled to himself as he headed towards the Ravenscourt Mere.
Presently, he stood atop an earth bank looking out to the island at the heart of the lake. A dozen feet below was the calm, deep water of the mere. It reflected the sky, forming a mirror image that showed the clouds and the circle of trees that surrounded the mere and hid it from the view of the castle. The appeal of that water was suddenly impossible to resist.
Without hesitation, he stripped off his waistcoat and shirt, the muscles of his chest and shoulders catching the dappled sunlight. His skin prickled with anticipation as he kicked off his shoes and paused only to roll up the cuffs of his breeches. Then, with the easy grace of a man long accustomed to physical exertion, he dove into the cool embrace of the mere.
Juliet wandered the woods, savoring the lonely wildness of it. It distanced her from her Aunt, her cousin, and the man she was being forced to marry. She could pretend that she was back at Wetherby. Though that was not entirely a happy place either.
Without warning, she was stepping clear of the trees onto an open promontory. And the Duke was in front of her.
She stopped, frozen by shock into immobility. He was undressing, standing with his back to her, and with seemingly no idea of her presence. She knew that the proper thing to do was to call out and then turn away. Allow him the chance to stop disrobing and to replace those clothes he had already discarded.
But she could not bring herself to do it.
It was wicked and wanton. He had removed his shirt, tossing it casually aside like some barbarian prince. His back was broad and pale, banded with strong muscles, but also marked.
Juliet frowned as she tried to make out the curious markings that made lines across the middle of his back from right shoulder to left hip. It looked like scarring. The wounds that had made those scars must have been terrible indeed.
He flexed his broad shoulders and Juliet saw the muscles ripple. It sent a thrill through her all the way to her toes. She bit her lip, unable to dispel the thought of laying her hands on those bands of strength, feeling them bulge beneath her touch.
Part of her prayed for him to turn. To allow her a sight of his chest, and… her cheeks flamed bright and hot at the notion of what she might see if he decided to remove his breeches. Did men wear anything beneath their breeches? If so, the garment must be tight and therefore revealing of any shape beneath.
Juliet’s mouth was dry, she bit down painfully on her lip, toes curling in her shoes at the images cascading through her mind. Suddenly, the Duke stretched his arms above his head, jumped, and bent in the air to dive like a sleek spear into the water below.