first contact of his lips on mine startled me. It was a sensation I had imagined, but not accurately. He brushed his lips over mine. He waited for a moment, waited for me to object or perhaps to push him away. His lips hovered just a hair’s breadth from mine. My eyes closed, and he pressed his mouth to mine.
A knock made me jump back. I glanced around the room, hoping for somewhere to hide, somewhere to escape.
His eyes danced in amusement. “Shall I hide in my own manor?” To my astonishment, he did just that. He knelt behind the bed, hidden from view of the doorway.
I opened the door to Lady Bridget.
She frowned at me, her face regretful. She just stood there, and I knew she was trying to find the words necessary.
“I expect you will not need me any longer,” I tried.
“I regret not,” she answered.
We stood silently. I was thinking of the last two years, of the confidences we had shared. I was only a companion, but still we had shared many intimate conversations. We'd spent every day together for two years.
“Will you tell?” I asked softly.
“I will try not to,” she said. “But Lady Caroline knows it is you. It is only our friendship which keeps her silent.”
I heard the laughter of Lady Caroline coming down the hallway, and Lady Bridget gave me a nod, then left.
I closed the door gently behind her.
When I closed the door, the Duke stood.
“I will return in the morning for your agreement. You can visit with my younger sister while we wait. I would not want your respectability to fall under suspicion.”
I laughed. “Respectability? A Duke marrying a lady's companion? There is no respectability for me to have.”
“None to lose, either.”
“And you? Do you think you are untouchable?”
He was not the richest Duke in the peerage, but he was of great means. He was the youngest Duke, for certain. I allowed myself the fantasy of being a Duchess for a small moment.
“My dear Veronica, I am very nearly untouchable. But I will not be ostracized for marrying the orphaned daughter of a Baronet. He may not have been of the aristocracy, but I am hardly marrying a peasant.”
“You delude yourself if you think it will not be a scandal.”
He grinned, but there was a glint to his eye. “No, your diary is a scandal. My choice of wife will merely be gossip.”
I hid in my room for the rest of the afternoon and evening. I did not want to face Jeanette: surely she would know. Surely everyone would know, by now. And surely the Duke had been jesting.
But if he were going to humiliate me, he could have done so in the library.
As midnight came and the house grew quiet, I decided to leave. I was still dressed, still sitting with my bags packed to go. The Duke and I had never even been introduced; an engagement was impossible.
I knew if I cut through the woods to the road on the other side of the estate, the stagecoach would come along early in the morning.
It seemed safer. And leaving before any could see my shame was most desirable.
I softly stole into the hallway, my bags in hand. I was all the way down the hallway when I heard a door open behind me.
I froze. I didn't dare look.
“Drop the bags.”
I didn't turn. “Your Grace,” I pleaded, but I obeyed.
Without another word, he picked up my bags and carried them back to my room. I stood in the shadows, fearful of waking another guest and being discovered. The Duke seemed to fear nothing.
When he returned, I whispered, “Let me go, please.”
“No.” He grabbed my arm and dragged me down the stairs and out the door.
“For someone who fantasizes about obedience, you are the disobedient one.”He paused to think. “Or is it the punishment you long for?”
I was glad it was dark. My blush was certainly hidden, but even that knowledge did not lessen my embarrassment.
“You are a bore, Your Grace. I find you repulsive and I wish to go.”
“A bore? Repulsive?” He laughed. “You did not write such a fantasy in your diary about someone who repulsed you.”
I stood in the moonlight, shivering at the moisture in the air.
“It is that you do not trust me,” he said.
“How can I?”
He took my hand, and I was surprised at his gentleness. He turned it over, then kissed the center of my palm. “It is every girl's dream, no? You have caught a Duke with means.”
“I do not need to be rescued. You could force me to stay with much less than a promise of marriage. Why propose?”
“Because I am honorable man.”
I laughed, a bark of skeptical laughter, and he laughed with me.
“I am a selfish man. I see what I want, and I acquire it.”
“I am not a thing to be acquired.”
“I promise you will enjoy being mine.”
The moonlight caught a glimmer in his eye. I took a step back instinctively, and he seemed to like that. He captured my fingers in his hand, bending them back so my palm was flattened and exposed. I guessed his intentions and tried to pull away, but I did not succeed. He raised the crop and snapped it across my palm.
“Try to run away again, Miss Veronica Bridges, and I will punish you just as you fantasized in your diary.”
So he had read it.
With the sting in my hand burning, I regretted my fantasies. I knew the one he referred to: me, bare-bottomed and barelegged; him, welting my skin with his crop. I had called him crazy and mad, but now I was certain I was the mad one. How could I fantasize of such things?
The sting was still buzzing when he snapped the crop across my palm a second time. I pulled my hand away from him and cradled it close to my chest.
The sting grew almost unbearable. Tears pooled in my eyes, and I stared at my wounded hand. But I did not rub the sting away. It was the first time, despite all my fantasies, that I had every been struck. The moonlight was clear enough that I could see two welted lines across my palm.
The pain did not fade.
The Duke's curious eyes watched my reaction. There was something about his presence that made me wish he would strike my hand again. The pain buzzed more intense in my hand.
Suddenly, my skin swallowed the pain.
I stared down at my hand. The tingles were still there, and yet I could not call it unpleasant. It was as if my hand had absorbed and dissipated the pain. I was not even sure it hurt. I could feel a warmness, but even that was fading quickly in the cold night air.
Then I felt such wretched disappointment that all my embarrassment disappeared. Loneliness surged into me. I was overcome with a dizzy, lost feeling.
When I looked up at the Duke, he smiled at me wickedly, as if he knew my every thought. “Stay,” he commanded. He used a finger to wipe the tear that had overflowed onto my cheek. I hadn't even known I was crying.
Softly, he added, “I am lonely, Veronica.”
In that moment, I cared not what he would do with me. I did not care if I would become his wife, his mistress or even his servant. I did not even care