Dexter stripped off his sodden shirt with some relief, for little trickles of water were still running down his chest and they felt icy cold. His boots were also full of water and it was one of the most unpleasant things he had ever experienced. He hoped that they were not ruined. They were almost new and he could not afford to buy another pair. He had invested in several new items of clothing to add credence to his role as a fortune hunter since he did not think he could turn up to pay court to an heiress looking like the beggar he was. Lord Liverpool gave such expenses short shrift, so now his wallet was empty.

He heard a knock and a step in the doorway and turned to find Laura there, her arms full of clothes. She was staring at his naked torso and a deep pink color stained her cheeks. There was shock in her eyes. The clothes slipped from her hands and she made a grab for them even whilst her gaze was still riveted on him.

"I've brought...Um...Did you..."

Dexter was surprised that she was acting like a startled virgin when she was an experienced woman, a widow with a child. Surely there was no need for any pretense between them after all that had happened? And surely she did not possess an ounce of modesty? In bed with him four years previously she had been open and generous, warm and wanton. Her sweet, seductive shamelessness had been one of the reasons that he had fallen so disastrously in love with her. It had seemed so honest and unguarded at the time.

But she had put him right quickly enough on that score. She had no use for him and his devotion, so she had said. And when she had had him in her bed once it seemed that she had no further use for him in that respect, either.

"It would be best for you to leave now," she had said in the morning, with a cool, aristocratic disdain that had made him feel utterly insignificant. "I would not wish the servants to find you here...."

Yet now it seemed that she had forgotten her indifference to him, since she was staring like a woman who had never seen a half-naked man before and looking fl.u.s.tered and more than a little intrigued. Her glance stirred something sensual in Dexter, reviving the fire he had only just managed to damp down.

Somewhere at the back of his mind a voice was cautioning him that to take this any further would be dangerous and irresponsible. He ignored it. He wanted to know if what he had experienced before with Laura had been no more than vivid imagining. He needed to know. Once he had exorcised the power she had over him, once he had proved that there was nothing special about Laura at all, he would be free of the past. He was no longer an inexperienced youth. He was at no risk of falling in love with Laura Cole all over again.

Very deliberately he bent down and eased off his boots. When he straightened up Laura was still staring. With calculated intent, he started to unfasten his trousers.

"Did you want me to take these off, as well?" His voice had a rough edge to it now.

Laura's eyes met his and there was a confused and heated expression in them that made the l.u.s.t slam through him, tightening its grip on him even as he cautioned himself against it.

"Stop! No!" Laura seemed to wake from a trance. She thrust the pile of clothes down on the table and glared at him. "What are you doing?"

"I am removing my wet clothes," Dexter said. He allowed his gaze to drift over her appraisingly. "You should do the same, your grace. You look-" his voice dropped "- most disheveled."

He saw Laura swallow hard. Her hazel eyes darkened further and the unconscious desire in them sent another jolt of l.u.s.t through him. The warmth of the room, the intimacy of the small s.p.a.ce, the heady scent of lavender and his seminakedness were a powerful blend. Dexter took a step toward her.

He had not intended this when first they had met. He had certainly not meant to provoke Laura or tease her or make love to her. Such a course of action was completely irrational. But she was standing there with her hair tumbled about her shoulders and the d.a.m.ned gown still clinging to every curve and he wanted her with all the raw longing he had known four years before. And he wanted to prove that he could master that longing and take one kiss and that it would mean absolutely nothing.

He took another step toward Laura. She took a step back so that she was trapped between his body and the warming room door. She was clutching one of the shirts to her breast now like armor.

"Mr. Anstruther," Laura said, her voice a thread of sound, "this is most improper."

"You were swift enough to help me out of my clothes the last time we met," Dexter said, "and we both know that your concessions to propriety are only for outward show."

He took the shirt from her hands and tossed it carelessly aside, closing the s.p.a.ce between them.

He saw the expression flare in Laura's eyes, pain as well as heat. "I did not invite you here to-"

"To take up where we left off?"

Dexter was so close to her now that he could see the rapid rise and fall of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s beneath the damp muslin of her gown and the pulse that beat in the hollow of her throat. He wanted to rip the dress from neck to hem and expose her pale body to his sight and touch. The violence of his reaction shocked him, a man who prided himself on his self-control, even as the shock was swept away by the desire that ran through his blood in a ravening tide.

"Perhaps you did not intend this." His words were a breath against her lips. "But now that I understand what it is that you want..."

Confusion flickered in the hazel eyes so close to his. "What I want?"

"Yes. An affair. No complications, no involvement. Four years ago you told me that s.e.x was nothing more than sport to you. So that is what I am offering now-a love affair, nothing but pleasure."

She put a hand against his chest and pushed him away from her. "I never said an affair was what I wanted!"

Anger and l.u.s.t warred in Dexter. The feeling was utterly alien to him. He did not want to talk. His need for her had pushed him beyond that but still the bitterness in him could not be denied. His voice was harsh. "Four years ago I asked you to elope with me and instead you laughed at me and threw me from the house. It was clear that you did not wish for any emotional entanglement."

"No, I did not...." Her voice caught. "But I did not intend you to interpret that as a desire for an affair."

"No?" His anger increased by several notches. It seemed as uncontrollable as his need for her and his lack of restraint only served to inflame him further.

"So all you sought was one night of pa.s.sion," he said bitterly. "I realize that when your appet.i.te was slaked you wanted nothing other than for me to leave."

He did not give her the opportunity to reply. His delusion of self-restraint vanished and he bent his head and kissed her, determined now to prove that there was nothing unique or exceptional in his response to her and there never had been.

As soon as they touched he knew he had lost.

His mouth slanted over hers with the same precise perfection that he remembered. They matched as though they were made for one another. Their bodies came together gently, flawlessly, with the same exquisite sense of rightness as before.

The thought knocked the breath from Dexter's body as powerfully as any physical reaction. There was no uncertainty between them. Their bodies recognized each other with an instinct older than time. The sense of belonging together was strong and dangerously seductive. Old feelings and emotions started to awaken.

"This is how it was always meant to be..."

Dexter knew that such thoughts and emotions were an illusion. They had to be. He might achieve physical bliss with Laura Cole but there was no more to it than that. There was no real sense of rightness, no belonging, no love. Love was a misnomer for infatuation anyway, and he was too old and experienced to feel that now. But in trying to banish the need he felt for her all he had managed to achieve was to awaken every last yearning, every last desire. He ached with the need for satisfaction. He wanted Laura so much it actually hurt. He closed his mind to complicated emotion and allowed himself simply to feel.

He deepened the kiss, coaxing her lips apart, his tongue sliding inside to search and caress and seduce. She tasted sweet as honey. He sensed a hesitation in her beneath the hot, helpless response that she could not deny, and he almost drew back, but a moment later her uncertainty had gone and she pressed closer against him, meeting his demands with a heated need of her own. Her hands slid across his bare chest, raising sensations in him that roused a firestorm of physical desire. This was the secret d.u.c.h.ess that he remembered, the woman who responded to him without fear or modesty, who gave all of herself, in contradiction of her cool public persona, and aroused an answering ache of need in him. He had wondered if he had imagined their response to one another or if, in his innocence, he had made it more powerful and extraordinary than it really was. Yet now there was the same cascade of sensation and emotion, an explosion of feeling, sparks of fire in his blood. He was not a fanciful man but the force of it almost swept him away.

But as he reached for her to draw her closer still, she drew back with a gasp.

"No! I cannot do this." She took a step back and raised one hand to her forehead. A frown dented the smooth skin between her brows as though she had a sudden headache. "I do not want this."

Some of the white-hot fever eased within him and this time when Dexter made a determined effort to regain rational control, he succeeded. He too took a step back, his hands falling to his sides. So it seemed that what had felt so real, so right to him had been no more than an illusion. Once again it had meant nothing to her.

"Forgive me," he said with biting sarcasm, "but I was under the impression that you kissed me back, your grace. Were you merely curious to see if all that wh.o.r.e-house experience had changed me?"

She flinched. The color flooded her cheeks. Her lips were deep pink and slightly swollen from his kisses and she pressed a hand to them. "I have my reputation to consider," she said steadily. "Fortune's Folly is a small place and I cannot afford to lose my good name-"

Dexter laughed. "You were not so careful of it last time and I would swear you still want me."

She bit her lip hard. "That is beside the point. There is more at stake now."

"You are no more than a hypocrite," Dexter said brutally. "You always were concerned for nothing but outward show." The anger licked through his blood. He was in danger of making the same mistakes all over again and being carried away by his l.u.s.t. His self-restraint where Laura Cole was concerned seemed as wafer-thin as before. He wondered bitterly why it took him so long to learn. Sanity was clearing his mind now and with it came a mixture of fury and perplexity that he had even thought of pursuing her again. He was in Fortune's Folly for work and also to swallow his pride and find a rich, conformable wife who would fit into his life without causing any trouble. He did not want to behave in a way that reminded him of his parents' disastrous indiscretions. The thought of such emotional incontinence made him feel cold to the bones. He had put all that behind him.

He grabbed his wet shirt and forced his feet into his soaking boots, wincing as the leather creaked in protest. "I won't trouble you for those spare clothes," he said. "I'll walk back as I am."

"Like that? From my house?" Laura was clearly taken aback.

It gave him the greatest pleasure to provoke her. "Indeed. If anyone gossips you may tell them that I have been fixing your medieval plumbing."

"You are absurd."

"And as I have said, you were always concerned with preserving public propriety when beneath the surface you broke every rule." He gave her a brusque nod. "Good day, your grace."

"Mr. Anstruther." Her voice halted him before he reached the door and he stopped, deploring the fact that even now a part of him wanted her to call him back, back into her arms, back into her bed.

"I think it would be better," she said, "if we avoided each other in future."

That was going to be the devil of a problem in a small village like Fortune's Folly but Dexter was not going to argue. In fact he would do his utmost to oblige her. He wanted to keep out of her way and forget that anything had ever occurred between them though he knew it would be the devil's own job to do so.

"Of course," he said. "It will be my pleasure."

This time he walked out on her without being invited to leave.

CHAPTER FOUR.

HE HAD CHANGED. The Dexter Anstruther she had known before would never have spoken, acted or behaved like that. He had become a man who was hard, experienced and cynical. And she had taken her part in making him so.

Laura, her soaking gown and underclothes changed for a clean, dry set, sat before her mirror combing the tangles out of her hair. Her body still hummed gently, frustratingly, with a pulse of thwarted desire. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s felt heavy and full and her whole body was flushed with arousal. Woken from four years of celibacy, it was demanding satisfaction.

With an uncharacteristic impatience, she slammed the comb down on the dressing table. d.a.m.n Dexter Anstruther! It would have been better if she had never met him.

When first she had known him, Dexter had been sent to catch the notorious highwaywoman Glory and bring her to justice. For that reason alone Laura, who had ridden out on more than one occasion with the Glory Girls, had kept out of his way. Rumor whispered that Dexter was one of the shadowy Guardians, the men who worked for the Home Secretary to keep the country safe against threats to law and peace within its own borders. The war against Napoleon had made everyone acutely aware of the danger from abroad but equally important and equally secret was the threat of civil unrest.

It seemed strange now to recall that when Dexter had first joined their house party at Cole Court she had barely noticed him as a man, except to register the fact that he was very handsome. That had been a fact that was difficult to miss, for he had dark, tawny, golden hair, sapphire-blue eyes and an impressive physique. All the housemaids had been in love with him and probably some of the footmen, too. His good looks had in fact initially made Laura wary, for she was familiar with being the plain one at the ball, the girl whom everyone overlooked. She would never in her wildest dreams have expected to draw the attention of a man who was as sinfully attractive, as utterly gorgeous, as Dexter Anstruther.

But slowly and so subtly she was still not sure how it had happened, Laura had started to become aware of Dexter in a different way. He was thoughtful, kind and he listened. Laura, accustomed to being ignored by her husband, found that being the sole focus of Dexter's attention was extremely seductive. She had allowed herself to spend time with him; she had fallen in love with him without even really noticing and once it had happened it was far too late to save her heart.

She had struggled hard against her feelings. Her involvement with the Glory Girls was one secret she absolutely had to keep. And not only was she eight years Dexter's senior, she was also a married woman, a d.u.c.h.ess, and as far as everyone knew, a pillar of the community. There were endless reasons why her foolish pa.s.sion for Dexter was doomed and so she had tried to ignore it, and him, as best she could.

Then, one afternoon, Dexter had found her alone and distraught after Charles had betrayed and deserted her and she had lost one of her closest friends. Dexter had comforted her and she had turned to him absolutely. She did not know when comfort had turned to desire and desire to pa.s.sion. It had ambushed her utterly, taking her into uncharted waters.

But in the morning the fever had gone from her and she had seen her actions for what they really were. She had hidden her guilt and criminality from Dexter. Worse than that, she had been unfaithful to her husband, she had taken the virginity of a man eight years her junior; she had used him to ease her pain.

For Laura, unfamiliar with sensual pleasure, the night had been unimaginably blissful. But it was still dreadfully wrong. And when Dexter had begged her to elope with him, to run away from Charles and leave all her unhappiness behind, she had known that although she found the idea dangerously appealing, it would be the worst thing that she could do.

She could still see the expression on Dexter's face when he had pleaded with her to go with him. He had looked eager and hopeful, with the kind of shining, new happiness about him that she remembered from when she, too, had been young. When she saw it, it made her feel every one of those eight years' difference in their ages. She knew that if she took what he was offering she would ruin him forever. For a man of his age at the start of his career, with no money or connections, with nothing but a good name and integrity of spirit, to run away with a married d.u.c.h.ess considerably older than he was himself, would be absolute disaster. The scandal would ruin him and he would never recover.

She had sent him away.

She had not done it gently. She had been deliberately cruel, for she judged that if she had explained her reasons he would have tried to override them and she would have been all too easily persuaded. She had hurt him and in the process she had broken her own heart as well as his. She had made him think her a faithless wanton. And now, four years later, she had had to send him away again still thinking she was a hypocrite and a wh.o.r.e.

Laura got to her feet and took an anxious turn across the room. When she had sent Dexter away before she had thought that would be the end of the matter. She had never imagined that the outcome of that pa.s.sionate encounter would be her beautiful, precious daughter, Harriet.

It had taken her a long time to realize that she was pregnant. At first when she had missed her courses she had a.s.sumed that the misery and loss she had suffered had affected her cycle. She had been married to Charles for over ten barren years and during that time had gradually come to a.s.sume that there would be no children. Her childlessness had been a terrible grief to her, made all the more painful because she knew there was probably no cause for it other than the fact that her husband never came to her bed. When she had fallen pregnant with Hattie she had suffered no sickness in the mornings and had been out riding until her sixth month. Thinking back over that time, she wondered whether she had simply been denying her situation or had been so transfixed to find herself enceinte after all those years that she was afraid even to think about it in case it was all an illusion. Whatever the case, she said nothing until her friend Mari Falconer had challenged her gently about the pregnancy and then she had finally admitted to her oldest friend that the baby was not Charles's child.

Laura put her hands to her head for a brief moment and then allowed them to fall. Her pregnancy had been a thing so precious and so closely guarded that she was afraid that if anyone or anything should threaten her baby or her future happiness she would surely run quite mad. And then Charles had arrived and had done precisely that. He had sworn to take the child away from her as soon as it was born. He had shouted at her and hit her, pushing her down the stairs...

Laura closed her eyes for a second to blot out the memory of that appalling scene. She told herself fiercely that she did not need to think about it now, or ever again. Charles was dead and his hatred could no longer touch either herself or Hattie. But she still felt unsettled and disturbed and she knew that the reason was Dexter. She had never imagined that he would come to Fortune's Folly. She had never thought to see him again.

Dexter could never be allowed to know about Hattie for if the truth ever came out her daughter would be branded a b.a.s.t.a.r.d and her life ruined forever.

Laura felt cold even to think of it. She shuddered, feeling the goose b.u.mps breaking out on her skin. She did not have any fears for herself or her own reputation if the truth were known; that mattered nothing compared to Hattie's future. Nor did she believe that Dexter would ever deliberately hurt an innocent child, as Charles had threatened to do. But if Dexter knew Hattie was his daughter he might want some say in her upbringing. He might wish to acknowledge her openly. Infidelity and illegitimacy had made his family a laughingstock throughout his life. His parents' offspring had borne the stigma of not knowing the truth of their lineage and she could not imagine Dexter would wish the same fate on his own children. He might suggest that Hattie be brought up with his own family.

He might try to take Hattie away from her.

A powerful wave of protectiveness swamped Laura. She would die before she relinquished her child. And she would do everything in her power to make sure that no rumor or whisper of scandal would ever taint Hattie's future with her mother's disgrace.

So she could never tell Dexter about his daughter. Hattie had to be protected at all costs. She had to remain forever unquestionably and officially the offspring of the late Duke of Cole. For the past three years Laura's sole purpose had been to shield and safeguard her child and that would not change now.

Laura walked slowly through the connecting door that linked her bedchamber with her daughter's room. Her sister-in-law, who had made sure that her children's nursery was not only on a different floor but in a different wing of the house, had told her quite plainly that she was mad to spend so much time with Hattie.

"You are storing up trouble for yourself in future," she prophesied gloomily. "The child will grow up thinking it natural to spend time with you and will be forever hanging on your skirts. Best to get her a good nurse and then leave her upbringing to the servants."

Which, Laura thought, probably accounted for the dislike in which her niece and nephew seemed to hold their parents.

She picked up the framed charcoal drawing of Hattie that stood on the chest of drawers and studied it for a moment. Hattie was smiling, all round pink cheeks, tiny rosebud mouth and tumbled black curls. She did not look like Dexter. She had Laura's hazel eyes and Laura's grandfather's coloring, but apart from that Laura thought she resembled no one in particular. She was her own person.

Laura's heart eased slightly. Perhaps Dexter would not even recognize Hattie were he to see her in the village. Why should he, when she did not resemble him? Perhaps, Laura thought with a flash of bitterness, he would not believe Hattie to be his even if she did tell him. Since he thought Laura herself to be a faithless wanton he would think Hattie's father could be one of any number of men.

But even so, she could not risk it. She would not hide Hattie away, of course, for people would notice that and talk, but she would have to be very careful.

She was so deep in her thoughts that she missed the sound of the front door opening and footsteps on the stair. A moment later the door of the room burst open and Hattie flung herself on Laura, a sticky, stripy piece of candy clutched in her hand. Judging by the way her cheeks were bulging, Laura suspected that the rest of the sweet-a rather large piece by the looks of it-was already in her mouth. She bent and scooped Hattie up in her arms.

"Mama, Mama! Candy!"

"So I see," Laura said, smiling over her daughter's curls at the nursemaid, who had followed Hattie up the stairs and was standing in the doorway. "Have you had fun, darling? I hope you were good for Rachel."

"Mr. Blount gave Lady Harriet some sweets, ma'am," Rachel said. "I hope you do not mind. And Mrs. Morton gave her some lilac ribbons for her hair and a little sc.r.a.p of lace to make a doll's dress. Very generous, people are."

"Yes, they are." Laura kissed Hattie's bulging cheek and smoothed a hand over her soft curls. She knew most of the shopkeepers in Fortune's Folly pitied her the lack of a husband and her straitened circ.u.mstances, but because they felt uncomfortable giving a d.u.c.h.ess charity they would always slip Hattie presents instead. Almost all of Hattie's clothes were made from off cuts from Mrs. Morton's gown shop and Hattie was likely to develop a very sweet tooth as a result of the grocer's generosity, for scarcely a day went past without him leaving a small bag of sweets for her, or a packet of biscuits or a new cake recipe he was apparently trying out. Mrs. Carrington, who acted as cook housekeeper for Laura these days, grumbled that she was quite capable of making her own cakes, thank you, but she said it quietly because she knew as well as everyone else that without the generosity of their neighbors the household would in all probability starve.

"Mr. Wilson gave me two turnips," Rachel said with a giggle. "He said Lady Harriet would enjoy making a lantern from one for Halloween and Mrs. Carrington can turn the other into soup."

"That sounds delicious," Laura said, "though I do not know how you managed to carry everything home." She smiled at Hattie. "Will you enjoy making a lantern, darling?"

"Yes," Hattie said, wriggling to be freed. Laura put her down and she turned her face hopefully toward Rachel. "Can we make it now?"

"Not now, milady," Rachel said firmly. "It's time for nuncheon."

"Don't tell me," Laura said resignedly. "Mr. Blount also gave you some hot-cross buns."

"And some oaten biscuits and strawberry jam," Rachel said. "He said it would only go to waste if I did not take it." She held out her hand to Hattie. "Come along, madam. Time to wash all that candy from your fingers."

"I can do it myself," Hattie said with dignity, spurning her helping hand, and Laura smothered a smile.

"Proper independent, she is," Rachel said. "You mind, madam. She'll be walking into the village all on her own one of these days if we give her half a chance. Strong-minded, she is, the poppet."