An American Duchess Read online

  Then she felt a tug of guilt and disloyalty. Daisy, Billy’s beloved, was tragically dead. She couldn’t bear to think about it. Not about one more person precious to her being gone.

  And Langford... Nigel had hung his head and she saw him fighting tears. The man who showed nothing, who held in all emotion, was struggling against pain too great to hold in. They both hurt so badly. They both needed this.

  She was never going to love anyone the way she’d loved Richmond. But she didn’t want to live her whole life as a virgin. She wanted to fly.

  “Get in the cockpit,” she whispered.

  “I cannot fly the—”

  “That’s not what I have in mind. And undo your trousers when you get in there.”

  Her heart thrummed like the drum in a jazz band. She watched the duke put his foot on the wing and swing into the seat of the cockpit. Before he sat down, he undid his trousers and pushed them down to his knees. Revealing his long, muscled legs and drawers that clung to lean hips. Holding her gaze, he pushed those down, too.

  Grasp life, a voice in her brain urged. Now.

  He was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. She’d never wanted anyone like this. As if she were going to fly into pieces if she didn’t press herself tight to him and feel his arms around her.

  When she took a risk, she did it fast. She got up on the wing and into the tight space of the seat with Nigel, facing him. He drew her on top of him.

  Her hands splayed on his hard, broad chest and he pulled her forward to kiss her deeply. His mouth was hot, commanding. She fell into his kiss as if she were in a spin and couldn’t pull out.

  She undid the fastenings of her trousers and tried to tug them down. “Rest your knee on mine,” he directed. When she did, he helped her draw her trousers down.

  She managed to get them to her ankles. Then Nigel eased them off, along with her boots, first one leg and then the other. All the while he looked at her with fierce, intense desire.

  She was used to feeling fear along with a sharp tug of excitement. Any pilot was. She’d just never really felt it with a man before. But she felt it all the time with Nigel. Not just when they had swum naked in Brideswell’s lake or when they’d kissed in her car. She felt it whenever they were in the same room.

  She’d also planned to be confident the very first time she made love. But now she was trembling.

  Her breath left her when he lifted her gently. She balanced above him, knowing what he wanted.

  She closed her eyes and sank down on him.

  Sophisticated girls had warned her there was pain—she hadn’t believed it. Not really. They’d said it was worth it.

  God, was it?

  But then all the pleasure of his hands caressing her made the pain go away. Now she knew—this felt perfect. The heat of the sun engulfed her, and Langford was boiling hot beneath her. This was decadent.

  It was everything she wanted.

  Then something happened inside her. She felt hotter, tenser. All coiled up. Her hands fisted and hit his shoulders. Desperate, throaty moans came from her. Then all her nerves burst like fireworks, and she gave a wild sob, hit his back and surrendered to something thrilling and sweet and wonderful.

  * * *

  His chest felt like a vise. Nigel was dazzled. On fire.

  Miss Gifford collapsed on him, gasping softly.

  He loved having her touch him, having her pressed against him. He savored the pressure of her hands. The weight of her rounded bottom on his thighs. The heat of her breath on his skin.

  He was in the tight padded seat in the cramped cockpit of an aeroplane with a wild, tempting, gorgeous woman who was turning his brains into pudding.

  He had been damned nervous, making love to her.

  Miss Gifford was modern. Bold. She would have expectations. And when it came down to it, what the hell did he know about sex? His father had sent him to a courtesan to lose his virginity. Since it was bad form to relieve oneself with one’s hand, regular visits to a mistress were encouraged. They were willing and entertaining. But he wanted a hell of a lot more with Miss Gifford.

  He had wanted to please her.

  They were mad about that in America—the belief that women could enjoy sexual relations, too. Women expected it. But more than that, he’d wanted to make love to her knowing she was having fun, too.

  But he couldn’t hold on anymore. It was as if a white light exploded in his head. Pleasure hit him in one huge bolt of wild sensation and he gave in to it. Then he bent to kiss the top of her head.

  Belatedly, Nigel took a look around. They were still alone in the field, thank God.

  She straightened. Her cheeks were pink, her bobbed hair tangled around her. He couldn’t think what to say, so he kissed her.

  Then she drew back. He shifted her so they were apart and he gazed into her glowing violet eyes. This was a precious moment. He’d never felt so connected to a woman.

  She confounded him in every way, but fascinated him so much he could not get enough of her.

  A dog barked and Nigel heard voices—voices of men who worked on his estate calling to each other.

  With lightning speed he lifted Miss Gifford off his lap, drew her knickers back up, then her trousers. In battle, he’d learned quick reflexes. They had to preserve her reputation. “There’s someone coming,” he murmured. “We’ve got to get dressed.”

  The crunching of grass and bracken sounded louder.

  She hurried with the fastenings of her trousers. “You must hide. There’s no time for you to do up your trousers. Duck down.”

  She fastened her jacket with her brassiere still undone, smoothed her trousers, and she pulled her pilot’s helmet and goggles on over her disheveled hair. She put on an innocent expression.

  Nothing fazed her. Most girls of his acquaintance would be blithering wrecks right now. Not Miss Gifford. Coolly, she swung out of the cockpit and onto the wing of the plane.

  The voices and footsteps grew louder and Nigel ducked down.

  Dukes did not hide. But for her sake, he had to. This was one time he could not stand on pride.

  Miss Gifford waved and nonchalantly called, “Good afternoon.”

  The men returned her greeting, and a few minutes later, the men and the dogs were gone, having noticed nothing amiss.

  Relieved, Nigel stood and pulled up his linens and his trousers. He got out of the cockpit, jumping to the ground. As he did, she crouched down on the wing, grabbed one of the struts, leaned over and put her lips against his.

  He released her after a breathless moment. “You are beautiful.”

  It was not enough. Not enough to explain the tug in his heart as he looked at her.

  “Thank you.” Her lashes dipped over her eyes. “I never dreamed it felt like that,” she said huskily. “Now I know why people talk of nothing but sex. When it hurt, I thought—goodness, why do people do this? But then—it was glorious.”

  She spoke breathily, and her eyes opened wide, glowing with wicked delight. “You know, at first I was too shy to look at you while we were doing it. But now it’s all I want to do forever.”

  It was dangerous, but Nigel was getting aroused again. Perhaps they could do it again, here, propped against the side of the—

  Then his wits clicked back in and he realized what she had just said. It had hurt her. She didn’t have experience. Despite having been so bold, despite having acted so cool and collected when they were almost caught, she’d been...

  A virgin.

  Bloody, bloody hell.

  He had assumed... He had thought... She was so open and confident and daring, he had made a hell of a wrong assumption. “Miss Gifford, there is something I must do—”

  She put her finger over his lips. “You have to call me Zoe now. And you must get ou
t of here while the getting’s good. Almost getting caught was exhilarating—but I want to go flying now.”

  “Zoe, no. You must hear me out.”

  She jumped into the cockpit in one smooth motion. “I don’t want to talk right now. I’m desperate to fly.”

  His words of protest were drowned by the sputter of the engine as she started it. She mouthed something at him, then gave him a signal where she stuck her thumb up in the air.

  Nigel had no choice but to back away from the aeroplane and let her fly away.

  9

  AT THE GARAGE

  Damn English dinners.

  Nigel had no time to speak to Zoe alone.

  He did, however, have time to meet a “charming” girl his grandmother had invited to dinner. During cocktails in the drawing room, Grandmama dragged the tall, graceful, dark-haired girl to him and made the introduction. “Miss Elizabeth Strutt. Of the shipping Strutts. Her mother and your mother were grand friends at school. Perhaps you might play for us later, Miss Strutt. It is so rare girls even play pianoforte so well. They all seem to think they should be going to university.”

  Nigel almost shook his head. In three sentences Grandmama had outlined the girl’s attributes: wealth, noble bloodlines and the fact the girl had been raised to be an old-fashioned lady.

  He bowed over Miss Strutt’s hand. At least Grandmama had the decency to move away.

  The girl was the same age as Zoe. Her hair was waved and drawn back into a chignon. She wore a fashionable dress, but one of dark blue, much more sedate than Zoe’s short-skirted one of dramatic black, covered with thousands of beads. Or the beautiful rose silk dress that Julia wore. Come to think of it, she looked a lot like his former fiancée, Mary.

  “Sorry,” Elizabeth Strutt said, in a cool, jaded voice that reminded him of Zoe. “They’re pushing me at you in hopes of an engagement. Sadly, I am one of those girls who wanted to go to university.”

  “What do you intend to study?” he inquired.

  Her brows went up. He had just politely told her there was no chance of an engagement.

  “What if I told you I am still open to the possibilities?”

  Nigel glanced across the room. Sebastian was talking to Zoe, but his brother kept sneaking looks at his friend John Ransome. Standing with her mother, Zoe stole glances at where he and Elizabeth stood. Their gazes met, and then they both turned awkwardly away. Then he looked at her again almost instantly.

  What was she thinking? That he was a cad for having ravished her and offered her nothing?

  He’d done something unpardonable to her—he’d taken her innocence and not made it clear what he intended to do. There could be a child.

  He would have damn well offered her marriage if she hadn’t started her plane’s engine and coasted away.

  His hand almost shattered his glass. He needed to talk to her. He wanted to grab her and drag her from the room. He couldn’t do that. Not in front of guests and his family.

  “Who is she?” Miss Strutt drawled.

  The woman he had to marry. “My brother’s fiancée.”

  “I should have guessed she is the rich American. It is quite obvious she is not one of us.”

  No, she wasn’t. Zoe was something different and impossible to understand. She had upheaved his life from the moment she’d appeared in the road outside Brideswell.

  Now he was going to be living with her night and day. He would look across from her at breakfast. Go to her bedroom at night. Join her for marital visits.

  And he didn’t understand anything about her. No woman he knew would have given up her innocence, not without securing a marriage proposal first.

  He did not know what Zoe Gifford wanted from him. But he knew what he had to give her.

  Miss Strutt was speaking to him, but he could not focus on a word. In the same way, he had no idea what he ate during dinner. After the women left the dining room, he waited ten frustrating minutes when he muttered answers to political questions he didn’t even hear, then pushed back his chair. “I suggest we rejoin the women.”

  He saw surprised looks on the faces of his male guests. There hadn’t been enough time to finish cigars. But he damn well didn’t care. He almost sprinted to the drawing room. And when he burst in, he looked for Zoe. But she was gone.

  Grandmama made a beeline for him, her walking stick hastily smacking the carpet.

  “Where is—” he caught himself “—Miss Gifford?”

  The dowager looked around, rather like an owl. “I have no idea. Why are you concerned about your brother’s fiancée? You should be concerned about your own.”

  The problem was his brother’s fiancée was the woman who must become his fiancée. Then he blinked. “What fiancée?”

  “Miss Strutt will be your intended, as soon as you ask her. I have been assured by her mother that she will accept. We can have the whole matter taken care of in mere days, Nigel.”

  Miss Strutt was across the room, with his mother and Julia.

  “I just met the girl hours ago.”

  Grandmama hit him on the forearm with her lorgnette. “Nigel, in this day and age, this is the best we can hope to do. She is an heiress. She is granddaughter to an earl on her mother’s side. The girl is pleasing to the eye and polite. For an entire dinner she didn’t argue with you or insist on discussing the War or women’s rights.”

  “She didn’t?” He couldn’t remember what the woman had talked about.

  Grandmama rapped him on the forearm harder. “Duty is the only thing we have, Nigel. The only thing that will keep us safe.”

  “It’s too late. I can’t marry her.”

  His grandmother let her lorgnette fall to her side. “Nigel, what in heaven’s name are you talking about?”

  “You do not want to know. And I don’t want to discuss it. Suffice to say, I am going to get married. But not to Elizabeth Strutt.”

  * * *

  Zoe had been dragged upstairs by a servant claiming her mother had fallen ill, but the minute she’d closed Mother’s door, her mother whirled around. “That girl intends to grab the duke as quick as she can.”

  “What girl?”

  “Miss Strutt! Who else?”

  Zoe’s stomach felt as if it had dropped off the Woolworth Building. Her mother couldn’t possibly know what had happened between her and Nigel. She prayed Mother did not know.

  “I can see you’re changing your mind. I’ve watched you watch the duke. You couldn’t take your eyes off him tonight at dinner. What we have to do is make sure you get in there first.”

  When Mother wanted to arrange her life, Mother left all her fluttering behind and became more forceful than a titan of business. “Mother, I’m engaged to Sebastian.”

  “That, Zoe, is irrelevant.”

  She hardly thought so. And what was she going to do? She couldn’t marry Sebastian now. Mother was right. All through dinner, she’d stolen glances at Nigel. Each time she did it, he tilted his head toward her as if her gaze was a magnet. She had to fight to tear her gaze away.

  All through dinner all she’d wanted to do was crawl across the table, jump on Nigel and get all sweaty and excited while she made him turn to steam all over again.

  This was like having a fever. And it was close to making her delirious.

  Was she in love with Nigel? Or was this just lust? And what if there was a baby? She’d been so busy grasping at life and excitement, she hadn’t thought about that.

  “Are you in love with the duke?”

  Mother’s words rang in her head like an accusation. But she wanted to be honest and blunt—it was what you should do now. Stop lying. Stop hiding. Just tell the truth. “I don’t know, Mother. I think I might be.”

  Or I’m in lust with him. Really, really intense lust.
The kind of lust that makes you do crazy, crazy things.

  “Well, then you can’t marry his brother. If you marry and divorce Sebastian Hazelton, you can never have the duke. It’s unlawful for a man to marry the wife of his brother, if she’s divorced his brother, during the lifetime of his brother. I sent a telegram to our lawyers to check.” Zoe was startled. Mother had asked lawyers about this?

  Nigel had changed. He had been awfully passionate with her. And she couldn’t stop thinking about him. She’d felt happy when she’d loved Richmond. She didn’t feel exactly happy about loving Nigel. She felt all mixed up. “Maybe I’m not in love with Nigel—I mean Langford.”

  “Zoe, please. I’m your mother and I know you love this man. You can’t marry someone when you are in love with his brother.” Mother shooed her toward the door. “I feel much better now, Zoe. Now, go downstairs and ensure that Strutt creature doesn’t get her hooks into him.”

  Zoe rolled her eyes, but she returned to the drawing room. Nigel was in the corner, speaking in a low voice to Miss Strutt.

  It made her heart ache to see them together.

  In the opposite corner, Sebastian laughed at something Captain Ransome said. Then Ransome took Sebastian’s coffee cup and went to the urn to refill it.

  It would be easiest to just quietly say her piece now. But the dowager was within earshot. She might be standing with the Reverend Wesley, but her head was cocked toward Sebastian. At the same time, her gaze was fixed on Nigel and Miss Strutt. Elizabeth Strutt had been going on about the past—hunts and balls she remembered from before the War. Her strategy was apparently to win Nigel by implying she would act as if they were living in 1912, not 1922.

  Zoe thought that should be a perfect strategy to snare Nigel, that it was obvious they made the perfect couple, but he looked agitated by the conversation.

  If she couldn’t have Nigel—if he was falling under the spell of a woman from his world—why should she end her engagement?

  But she walked up to Sebastian. He lifted her hand to his lips and gave her a smoldering look. Why didn’t the man she’d made love with do this? Kiss her hand. Gaze at her as if she were the only thing in the world worth looking at.