Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
“You may go, Thomson,” Benedict instructed his valet, stretching and yawning. “Everything is unpacked and I can ready myself for bed.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” replied the manservant obediently, casting his eyes once more around the room as he retreated to the door, as if expecting to see errant socks or hairbrushes lurking somewhere. “What time will you rise tomorrow morning?”
“I’ll ring when I need you. Likely, I shall go out early by myself for some exercise and will not shave until I return. Do not trouble yourself before then.”
“Very good, Your Grace.”
Once the door closed and he was alone, Benedict sank down into the comfortable embrace of a large armchair in the suite’s sitting room and yawned again.
It had been a very long day and he was more than ready for sleep.
Dinner had been mercifully early and quick on this first night.
Lady Esher was an undemanding hostess who took good care of her guests’ comfort.
The bed was comfortable, the Rosemere staff had ensured that Benedict and Thomson had all that they needed for their stay, and now he looked forward to a peaceful night of sleep.
The Rosemere ladies should not require anything very much of his company now that they were at home again.
Tomorrow he might visit the stables and take a horse out for a good part of the day.
Benedict’s descent into relaxation was abruptly halted by the sound of a loud bang and a little girl’s laughter.
Ezra’s happy squeals soon joined the noises made his sister and Benedict looked at the clock with a jaundiced eye.
It was almost ten o’clock at night. Those children ought to have been asleep for hours, surely?
A short interlude of silence followed, lulling the duke into a false sense of security and almost allowing his nerves to settle once more.
Then the laughter began again, along with other noises.
Heavy footsteps sounded, as though someone was jumping or marching on wooden floorboards.
Good god, was that the beating of a drum? !
Closing his eyes and counseling himself to patience, Benedict slowly counted to ten. Then, at a particularly egregious recurrence of the drum beat, he rose with an oath on his lips and strode to the door. Since evidently no one could be asleep in the nursery, he rapped loudly on the door.
“You were very quick, Gertie,” said the voice of Lady Louisa Ascot as the door opened. “I hope you both had some supper… Oh, Your Grace!”
Lady Louisa stood there in the soft candlelight in a fine ivory cotton nightgown, her curls falling around her astonished face in a honey-gold cascade to her shoulders.
As she regarded him standing there, a most becoming blush bloomed on her cheeks, making Benedict forget for a moment why he had even crossed the corridor.
Good God, the sight of her was like the dose of a powerful drug.
Was she even aware how beautiful she was?
Excusing his own instincts, Benedict told himself that any red-blooded man would feel the same urge to sweep Lady Louisa off her feet, kiss those pink lips until she gasped for more and then carry her back to his bed…
“I thought you were Gertie and Ellen back from the kitchens,” she told him with self-conscious shyness as he stared at her, her face flushing even more deeply. “I sent them to get some supper when the children woke up and wanted stories.”
The dangerous spell upon Benedict was broken by the mention of the children, and then their actual appearance. Fanny and Ezra both came to stand beside Lady Louisa now, dolls and toy animals in hands and both in nightshirts and slippers.
“Uncle Benedict, come and hear our stories,” Fanny pleaded. “We are telling a story for each of my dolls. Imogen wanted a story about the fairy queen and then Pepper wanted one about a brave soldier. Ezra did the drumming for the army marching.”
“Yes, I heard the marching and drumming very clearly indeed,” Benedict responded crisply, seeing Lady Louisa’s face fall as she realized the likely motive of his visit.
“Too clearly. I remind you that it is ten o’clock at night and time that you were all asleep in bed.
If there must be more stories, let them be quiet ones. Is that understood?”
While his voice was calm and quiet, the duke spoke with a deliberate authority that he was glad to see made an impression on the two children. He did not want to make children unhappy, but they must still learn consideration for others, and an understanding of civilized living.
“Is that understood?” he repeated himself.
“Yes, Uncle Benedict,” answered Fanny as Ezra nodded his little head beside her.
“Yes, Your Grace,” Lady Louisa almost whispered as though her voice was choking.
“Good, thank you. Now, go to bed.”
With a curt nod, the duke closed the door on the nursery again and strode back to his own chamber.
His stern reprimands seemed to have done the trick and there was no more loud laughter, banging or marching from across the corridor.
Still, he found himself too wound up now to immediately contemplate sleep.
While it had hardly been any kind of confrontation, Benedict’s encounter with Lady Louisa had shaken him deeply.
He had seen many, many women in their nightgowns, and out of them, over the course of his life, and the sight had never arrested him quite like this.
While he had controlled himself firmly during their exchange of words, memories of the encounter now needled him.
Even in day dresses, the shapeliness of Lady Louisa’s figure was apparent but Benedict had usually managed to divert his gaze elsewhere during their journey. Tonight, he had been briefly transfixed and the image of her body in a thin nightgown was burned indelibly into his memory.
Thinking him a returning nursemaid, Lady’s Louisa had not thrown on a dressing gown before opening the door.
Golden curls falling loosely about her lovely face, the soft curve of her breasts had been plainly visible under her nightdress as she stood there, with the light of a candelabra behind her.
The dip of her waist between breast and hip was the most perfect shape conceivable.
Benedict might have made out the shadow of firm pink nipples beneath the fabric, but that might equally have been his eager imagination which was now on the rampage.
Having seen Lady Louisa like this, it was impossible not to think of his fingers loosening the tie on that gown and seeing it pool at her bare feet.
Damn it all!
This was something he had hoped to avoid.
There was no good to be found in lusting after unmarried young ladies, especially those as innocent as Lady Louisa Ascot.
Their kisses were too risky to steal enjoyably, and there was no hope of anything more than kisses, except for men with even fewer moral scruples than Benedict.
If he let himself be carried away by the simple sight of Lady Louisa in her nightgown, he would be doomed to ever rising levels of sexual frustration as long as he was at Rosemere. Yet, until he could hand over the children to Damien and Seraphine again, he could not leave.
In London, there were many more experienced ladies who would have been glad to help the handsome Duke of Northwick drive his unwanted desire in other directions tonight. Here in Cumbria, there was nothing but lakes, woodlands and hills where he would have to exercise it out of his blood.
A faint sound of careful footsteps and the click of a nearby door opening told him that the nursemaids had now returned. Good. That was one more barrier between him and the glowingly-lovely, untouched and untouchable young woman across the corridor.
How dare he?
Louisa sat on her bed, the candle still burning on her bedside table. The children were fast asleep after a final round of stories. From the stillness of the whole nursery suite, she imagined that Gertie and Ellen were sleeping too. Her own mind was far too unquiet to settle yet, however.
The Duke of Northwick’s short and ill-tempered visit had unsettled Louisa and she had not been at ease since she first opened the door unawares and found him standing there. Had he intended to humiliate her? Or had he not even noticed himself doing so?
Louisa had been standing there half-undressed, only in her nightgown, with not even a dressing gown to hand.
Yet, he had not even apologized for his intrusion nor averted his eyes.
Did he think she was one of the children?
He had certainly included Louisa in his scolding and she still smarted at the memory of it.
Snowballing together with her previous grudges at his ill-mannered arrival at Wexford Manor, and his cross words to her for wandering about at that inn, Louisa felt her heart welling with a strong feeling that she supposed was resentment. Surely, she had a right to resent him?
The more she thought about it, the clearer it was that the Duke of Northwick did not treat Louisa as he treated her aunt, or Seraphine.
Why should he show such respect to those ladies and so little to Louisa?
While she could not accuse him of actual disrespect, she did think he dismissed her too lightly.
Even when the duke looked at Louisa, he usually looked away again very quickly, as though she was not worthy of his interest. It made her feel quite indignant.
“He ought to apologize,” she whispered to herself, never yet having quite been able to let go of this thought, despite Aunt Beatrice’s advice.
Yes, he ought. If the Duke of Northwick had been standing before her now, she would have told him so to his face. Tomorrow, likely she would have lost her nerve and he would pay her little attention anyway. That was a pity…
A sudden impulse seized her and Louisa rose and pulled on her dressing-down and slippers, belting it tightly about her waist and sliding her feet into her slippers. Before she could lose her nerve, she crossed the corridor to the duke’s suite and rapped firmly on the door.
It opened so quickly that Louisa gasped and forgot to speak. She had imagined waking the duke and dragging him from his bed while he was sleepy and at a disadvantage. Instead, he was fully awake, entirely alert and still dressed, although in his shirt sleeves.
“Lady Louisa!” his deep voice rasped as astonishment, alarm and some other powerful but unfamiliar emotions crossed his face. “What are you at?”
“You should not treat people as you do, Your Grace,” Louisa managed to say in a low and trembling voice. “You ought not to treat me like a naughty child for example.”
“You are not a child,” his husky voice said as his uniquely handsome eyes looked her up and down with simultaneous bewilderment and a strange kind of fascination. “I have never thought of you so.”
“Then why do you scold me like a child? It was not just tonight. You did it at the inn too. Can you really not understand how humiliating that is for me?”
The duke’s handsome face was red with feeling, although Louisa was sure it was not embarrassment or regret.
Was he angry? Confused? Or only wishing to be left alone to sleep?
Something in the intensity of his gaze seemed to pull inside her, as though he was touching her invisibly. It was most disconcerting.
“Can you really not understand what I might feel around you, Lady Louisa?” he asked, and Louisa felt as though he had drawn closer to her without moving.
There was indeed only a matter of inches between them, across the threshold of his room. Louisa could feel herself breathing faster as though she had run instead of walked into this confrontation.
“Not unless you tell me what you are feeling, no,” she replied. "I suppose you will never do that any more than you will ever apologize to anyone.”
The Duke of Northwick took a long breath and exhaled slowly, leaning on the doorway and regarding Louisa with narrowed eyes.
He was always a handsome man, but his present dishevelment and lack of collar, stock and jacket somehow enhanced his looks and made him even more appealing to gaze upon.
How strange, when people usually dressed up and tidied to present themselves to company…
“You are right, Lady Louisa,” he told her at last. “I have no intention of sharing my present feelings with you. It is clear that you cannot understand them, and it would endanger both of us if I tried to explain.”
“That is your excuse then?” Louisa demanded hotly. “You may not think me a child, but you believe me deficient in understanding.”
“I believe you deficient in no way whatsoever, Lady Louisa,” he retorted with a passion that blazed briefly in one green eye and one blue, again generating that odd feeling that he was touching her inside without making any physical contact.
“On the contrary, you possess something more any other woman I have ever met…”
Now, the duke did take a step toward her and Louisa stumbled backwards, almost overwhelmed by the surging, pulling and throbbing of her blood in response to his words and looks. She felt like there was an ocean inside her and this tall, dark and handsome man was somehow influencing its tide.
“I must go to bed,” she babbled, retreating to the nursery bedroom from which she had emerged. “Goodnight, Your Grace.”
Louisa was relieved that the Duke of Northwick did not try to follow her, even although she could not say clearly why she thought he might. Closing the door behind her, she trembled against its frame, unable to make any sense of her most recent encounter with the duke.
What on earth was happening to her?