Page 29 of The Truth About Dukes
She repeated the gesture and Robert had to close his eyes. Watching her explore his responses was too much pleasure.
“Surprised. Pleased. We are behind four sturdy walls, Your Grace.”
“If you’re that familiar with my person, might I be Robert to you?” And what had walls to do with anything?
Constance wrapped her hand around his nape and partook of his mouth while he fisted his hands at his sides and tried to think of chess puzzles.
“I could be more familiar with your person, right here, right now,” she said. “I’m not some sheltered blossom with no experience of the world.”
He opened his eyes, which was unwise, because now he was fascinated with the curve of her lips and the curve of her waist.
“Iam a sheltered blossom,” he said. “I have experience of women—some—but I want more from you than a tumble against the orchard wall. Much more.”
She stepped back, expression disgruntled. “Right, you want a portrait, some landscapes. I can do that, though posing you—”
“Constance Wentworth.” He took both of her hands in his, lest she march off down the hill, leaving him alone and—ye gods, what a day—aroused. “I want everything with you. I’m not much of a bargain. I will doubtless be declared incompetent before the year is out, and all manner of scandal will result, but as it is yet within my power to marry, and we are well disposed toward one another…should I go down on one knee?”
Perhaps he was daft after all, because proposing to Constance had previously hovered only at the edges of his mind, another fantasy in a head full of them—though a pleasant fantasy. A lovely dream in fact that had turned into erotic pleasure late at night behind the locked door of Robert’s imagination.
“You are proposing to me? Proposingmarriage?”
“I thought I’d made it plain that I was proposing rather than propositioning.”
She raised her hand as if to worry a nail, then brushed her fingers through his hair instead. “You could do both.”
“I am proposing to you now. We can discuss the other later. One wants pillows for such a momentous undertaking. Wouldn’t do for the Rothhaven heir to be conceived while my duchess’s comfort is thwarted by a disobliging tree root.”
She glanced at the place below his waist. “If I am conceiving your heir, I suspect I will be oblivious to anything so paltry as a tree root. Are you sure, Rothhaven? I will come to the supper table with smears of paint on my sleeves, smelling of linseed oil and turpentine. I am no sort of hostess and never will be. I don’t keep a regular schedule, and my family can be troublesome.”
Why was she trying to talk him out of handing her a tiara? Robert was certain that his malady meant nothing to her, on the order of being left-handed or having a poor memory for numbers. The world did not share her opinion. She knew exactly what the world thought of men who became insensate without warning and dramatically lost control of their limbs.
“I know that you love your art,” he said, “and I’d be dealing with your family anyway because of Nathaniel’s marriage to Althea. Is there another reason why you hesitate, Constance?”
She looked around the orchard, a beautiful place, now that Robert had stopped longing to return to the Hall. The cherry trees were leafing out in a gauzy green canopy to the left, the plums were in full bloom overhead, while the apples waited their turn to the right. Spring in all its glory imbued the hilltop with light and hope, and the promise of succulent fruit in a few months’ time.
“I do not hesitate on my own behalf,” she said. “I am surprised, is all. We have known each other in some ways for but a very short time.”
“And in other ways,” he said, holding out his hand to her, “I know no woman better than I know you. I esteem no woman more highly than I esteem you. Be honest with me, please. I have been precipitous, I know, but my regard for you is genuine and time, unfortunately, is of the essence. If you cannot be happy with me, say so, and we will remain friends.”
He’d keep that promise, somehow. Constance deserved every happiness and he was asking much.
She took his outstretched hand. “I will be happier with you than I could be with anybody else, but please give me three days to contemplate the question. I expect I will accept, but I have learned caution, and I must be certain my choice is not a triumph of selfish impulse over consideration for a man I esteem greatly.”
She didn’t want to take advantage of him.Of all the outlandish…“You are concerned thatyouare somehow inadequate to marryme?”
She gave a terse, self-conscious nod. “I am no bargain, Your Grace. I lack charm, I lack…much.”
“And have I any charm to speak of?” Robert paced away and marched back to her. “Do I command any respect in the Lords? Am I a host of any renown? I cannot waltz, I have no small talk, I will not drink a full glass of port to save myself, I have never driven a dog cart, much less a high perch phaeton, nor have I sat a horse since childhood. Some duke I am, but I will make it my life’s work to ensure that we suit. I promise you that.”
He kissed her then, really, truly kissed her, wrapping her in his arms and silently vowing that he would make her happy, that he would make her dreams come true…once she confided to him what those dreams might be.
“Are we going shopping?” Althea asked. “Or am I spending most of the morning on my own, then meeting you at the coach and pretending you never left my side?”
A fair question, considering Constance had asked exactly that of her sister any number of times. Beyond the coach window, the outskirts of York went by in the usual procession of drab granite edifices and cramped cobblestone lanes.
“We will shop, but I have an errand to see to first,” Constance said. “Whenever I return here, I always fear I will see Jack Wentworth lounging outside one of the disreputable inns, trying to look handsome and rakish, and mostly looking evil.”
“I try not to think of Jack Wentworth at all.”
