Page 210 of The Ladies Least Likely
“Among other things, I have learned that I have been betrothed since birth. My grandfather was the Duke of Löwenburg, my mother is the current Duchess of Löwenburg, and I am to marry my cousin so we may keep the duchy within the family and placate some great-uncle who was furious that my grandfather gave the estate and the title to my mother instead of to him.”
She dropped her head, shaking it from side to side while Ren stared, struck speechless, his tongue too large to fit in his mouth.
“My mother left Silesia so I wouldn’t be a pawn,” she said. “It seems my father was killed in the Silesian wars, when the Hapsburgs tried to take the territory back from Prussia. And my mother feared that as the heir, someone might kill me and force her to marry, thus claiming the duchy. She left my grandfather in control of his lands, but now my grandfather is dead and my cousin wants to wed me so he may take possession of Löwenburg, and I have no say in the matter because the contract was signed when I was born.”
“Oh, Rhette.”
Though cold shock coursed through his veins, he forced himself to move, dragging his foot behind him and not caring if he scuffed the floor. The grace he’d studied and practiced deserted him in the face of this numbing realization. He limped to her stool and put his arms around her, pulling her against his chest.
He couldn’t imagine touching anyone else of his acquaintance, nor showing such affection to anyone else in hislife. But this was Harriette. He wrapped his arms about her shoulders and laid his head atop hers, and she leaned against his chest with a shuddering sigh.
“Many women would be thrilled to learn they are descended from dukes,” he said softly.
“And thrilled to be told they must move to a country they’ve never seen, marry and bear heirs to a man they’ve never met, and fit into a society they know nothing about, while knowing their decisions affect the welfare of thousands of people?”
He tightened his arms about her. “Such has always been the fate of high-born women, hasn’t it?” he murmured.
Women across time had been bound and traded as property, gaining a husband access to wealth and lands. Only look at King George, who refused to give away his princess daughters, some said because he did not want them setting up rival governments abroad and thwarting him as his sons had done.
But that it should happen to Harriette…Rhette, the imp with a slingshot who had pattered barefoot around Shepton Mallet with stains on her apron and her petticoat torn to shreds. Rhette, who had scaled the Blinder Wall at the Manor House and shimmied up a tree to the balcony of his house and could have broken her neck a hundred times. The neck of a duchess-to-be whose hand in marriage would grant a man the rule of a duchy. His mind reeled.
“But only think, Rhette, how my mother will fall all over herself when she learns of it. She’ll be the first to invite you to her house and serve tea to the next Duchess of Löwenburg.” He pressed the words out, painful as they were, and spoke slowly so his stupid tongue didn’t betray him. “Everyone will make a darling of you. No more being tossed out of grand houses on your ear. And your sketches—you will be eccentric and amusing, a duchess who draws. You will be forgiven anything when you are that high.”
He knew how it worked in those circles, that all manner of licentious behavior would be winked at as long as one were fashionable. Affairs. Gambling debts. Suspicious politics. As long as one had good blood, the most outrageous acts were amusing. And Harriette, despite her background, despite her upbringing, despite her profession and her history, had a noble bloodline.
A duchess. Higher than he, certainly. Ren had nothing to offer her now. And nothing she could accept, in honesty, if she were to be married.
“You mean to go through with the marriage, then.” His voice sounded hoarse.
“I don’t see how I have a choice. I know I’ve never looked the dutiful daughter, but my grandfather and my mother entrusted to me the fate of these lands. I stain their honor and break their word if I go against their wishes. My mother sacrificed a life of comfort as a duke’s daughter so that I would be safe and live to fulfill this promise.
“And there is the duchy to consider,” she went on after a moment. “My aunt has brought me up on the history. After Frederick II of Prussia stole most of Silesia from the Hapsburg Empress Maria Theresa, he set up provincial ministers to oversee it. But the dukes remain, at least in name, and many are still the overlords of their lands, reporting to the minister and the king. The minister will see to the king’s needs but not those of the people. And my aunt says Silesia is undergoing a great modernization under Prussian rule. A duchy whose governors are absent or uninvested may be left behind as the wealth grows everywhere else.”
She was promised to another. Tomarryanother. And she had to return to her homeland, a place he’d never heard of. Silesia was not on the Grand Tour of the glories of Westernculture and civilization; it was a backward region of farmers and miners and the poor.
She would leave the country. Leave him. Be entirely out of reach.
“When do you have to go?” The words came from him strangled, barely audible.
She sat up and slid her hands over her face, wiping her tears into her hairline. “When my betrothed comes to fetch me, no earlier. And not until I have this painting done of you, Lord Renwick. I want at leastonething I dreamed of to come true before everything changes.”
He couldn’t help himself. She was so dear, so sensible and brave, and her carmine-red lower lip quivered so beautifully in her distress. He bent his head and gently kissed that lip, then the enchanting corners of her mouth. It was unforgiveable, considering she’d just told him she was betrothed to another, but the urge to comfort her in any way he could overcame the need to be a gentleman.
She pressed her fingers to his chest, not to push him away but to deepen their connection. Perhaps she sensed what was on his heart. Her eyelids remained closed when he paused, and he couldn’t help kissing her again. For solace. Reassurance. But comfort flamed all too quickly into passion and her mouth opened beneath his, a trove of searing heat. She curled her hand into his neckcloth and kissed him hungrily, desperately, as if for the last time. Itwasfor the last time.
He was instantly lost. He slipped a hand into her loose waves of hair, cupping her head as she let it fall back in shameless surrender. With his other arm he hauled her against him, crushing her breasts against his chest. She gave a small whimper at the pressure and he eased his embrace, dragging his hand from her hair down the side of her neck and over her chest. Her nipple pearled in his palm, and in thoughtless greed he dippedhis hand beneath the fabric, closing it around one soft, perfect globe.
He reeled at the bolt of pleasure and her small gasp. She squirmed on the stool, pushing her breast into his hand and at the same time tilting her hips so his cock slid into the curtain of fabric between her legs, nestling in the warm crevice, just where he wanted to be. He groaned at the ease with which she offered him access. She was as shameless and greedy as he was, drowning in the passion that roared up between them like a ravenous flame.
There was some reason he should pull back. Something about being a gentleman and respecting her wishes. But when her body urged him on, when she leaned her breasts into his circling palm and groaned as he thumbed one diamond-hard nipple, when she rolled her hips against his and the rustle of fabric alone brought him nearly to release, he couldn’t think of one earthly reason he shouldn’t devour her right here, take what she offered, drive his tongue into her warm mouth and pull aside her skirts and plunge his cock into her open and ready?—
“Milord’s painting will never be finished at this rate,Liebelein.”
The amused drawl fell between them like the sword of Damocles, shattering the grip of lust. Ren lifted his head and withdrew his hand, but paused a moment before he stepped back, afraid the slightest friction of her skirts along his erection might urge him to an embarrassment. Harriette groaned but didn’t seem embarrassed at all, only regretful, dazed, and then slightly annoyed as she drew up her drawstring neckline and pulled down her disordered skirts.
“You’d better have Sorcha’s scones and some fresh clotted cream on that tray, Princess,” Harriette grumbled as her friend processed into the room in a fanfare of silken skirts and ruffles. “And a bottle of my aunt’s favorite port.”
“Nothing stronger?” Princess sounded amused as she set the tray she carried on a small mahogany table with lion’s paw feet. “You’d shock anyone else who found you like this, Hari.”
