Chapter Three

By the time he arrived at Goldfield House, thirty-five-year-old Christian Turner was in a very ill-temper indeed.

Only recently returned after spending several years in Italy, Christian had been thrown straight into dealing with outstanding business at the Farbourne estate.

This involved signing off numerous financial papers and resolving a complicated land dispute issue with a neighbor, not to mention handling the difficult correspondence with distant relatives of his damned stepmother, forever pleading poverty and seeking an allowance, which he would never, ever grant.

It was amidst all this stress and emotional turmoil that a most peculiar and unexpected message had arrived from the Goldfield estate in Sussex.

… we regret to inform you that your cousin Tobias Cramer, Duke of Goldfield, has died suddenly at the age of twenty-six, on the 4th of January. Under the terms of the Letters Patent for the Duchy of Goldfield, you are the next male heir, and the title and estates pass now to you in their entirety…

Christian had cursed profusely upon receiving that letter from the agents of the Goldfield estate. He barely remembered Toby from a long-ago visit with his father, but he did recall him as just the kind of milksop, half-hearted boy who would die inconveniently and leave his responsibilities to someone else.

… we therefore hope to meet you at your earliest convenience either at Goldfield House or our London offices. Please write by return to inform us of your wishes, and we will make all necessary arrangements…

A dukedom was not an inconsiderable inheritance, of course, but it might have come at a better time, and managing two estates would be even more of a headache than one. Christian did indeed write back by return to the Goldfield estate agents, but probably not with the reply they had expected.

Dear Sirs,

I thank you for your recent note to me, and I was grieved to hear of my cousin’s premature demise. However, an early visit to the estate or meeting with you is impossible. I am presently fully occupied with my estates in Farbourne and do not yet know how long until I finish wrapping up my business here.

I would therefore be grateful if you would manage the Goldfield estate on my behalf until I am able to travel. I will indeed notify you of my plans in this regard…

A month or two later, he received a personal letter from Mrs. Thomas, the housekeeper at Goldfield House, raising the question of Tobias’s widow, the scandalous, thrice-married Joan, and whether this lady was permitted to remain in residence. Reading between the lines of the housekeeper’s letter, she seemed to believe the young woman guilty of everything, from breach of the peace and blatant sexual immorality to cold-blooded murder.

Mrs. Thomas’s letter had actually made Christian laugh, especially the account of the “satanic” musical orgy in the garden. The Dowager Duchess of Goldfield was probably simply too young, beautiful, and spirited for some dowdy, middle-aged matron of parochial views and experience. Christian was a man of the world and not terribly interested in pedestrian squabbles or lower-class morality plays.

He had been planning to write back to Mrs. Thomas, to tell her that he couldn’t care less about the Dowager Duchess’s continued presence on the estate as long as she was funding her “disreputable” lifestyle from her own—presumably deep—pocket and not his.

Still, it had not been a priority, and he had postponed writing that letter to deal with some local magistrate business in Farbourne. But that was before his friend Andrew Montgomery, the Marquess of Townhill, had sent him that pamphlet from London.

The obscene cartoon on the front showed a comely young woman cavorting, naked, with musicians, sportsmen, and soldiers next to a coffin. An elderly man wearing a monocle was eying the woman’s shapely form while asking, “Is it my turn next?”

While the woman wasn’t named, she wore three wedding rings on her left hand, which the cartoonist had drawn in detail, each one marked with a different set of initials. The crest on the coffin was that of the Duke of Goldfield.

There could be no doubt among any who knew her that the woman in that caricature was Joan, the Dowager Duchess of Goldfield, formerly the Dowager Viscountess Lowburgh, and before that the Dowager Countess of Danmouth, and originally Lady Joan Haynes, daughter of the late Earl of Windham.

Andrew had scrawled a message on the top right left corner of the pamphlet.

Congratulations on your unexpected accession, Christian. This was circulating among the men at the club, and I thought you’d like to see it. You’ve certainly acquired some interesting relatives…

A.

PS. When can I meet the remarkable Dowager Duchess of Goldfield?

Seeing the pamphlet made Christian swear even more loudly than when he first received the news that Tobias had died. It was one thing for his cousin’s widow to rile a few staid, old women in the Sussex countryside and quite another for her to make a public exhibition of herself, and bring scandal and the ton’s disapprobation to the Duchy of Goldfield.

Cursing the infernal woman for the trouble she was causing him, Christian finally made arrangements to head south and sort out whatever was happening at Goldfield House in person before the situation deteriorated further.

The journey had taken almost ten days on horseback, and he had to swap his mounts often at staging posts and pay a premium for the best horses he could hire. Despite the summer weather, the coaching inns of England all seemed to be cold, damp and full of fleas. By the time he reached Sussex, he was tired, sore, and covered in bites.

The storm that blew up on the last stretch of the road to Goldfield House was the final straw in that godawful journey. When Christian finally pulled up to the darkened mansion and banged on the door to no avail, he was ready to explode. There was no one to greet him, stable his horse, or even let him into his own house.

Where the hell was everyone? Had the servants abandoned the place? It didn’t look at all dilapidated, at least from the outside. Eventually guessing that the thunder and rain were probably drowning out the sound of his banging on the door, he gave up and led his horse himself to where he remembered the stables were.

At least there were signs of life in the stable, as grooms and stable boys tried to soothe the terrified horses inside, combing, currying and speaking in low voices to the animals.

They did not see or hear him walking across the yard through the pouring rain and howling wind.

“See to my horse,” he called to them once within earshot. “She’s tired and soaked through. The poor creature should have a nosebag of oats after tonight’s journey.”

While surprised to be addressed so abruptly without introduction, the grooms had touched their cap to him and hurried to take his horse inside without demur.

“Where the hell is everyone?” Christian asked the older man who seemed to be in charge. “No one answered the damned front door.”

“We don’t know anything about the comings and goings in that house, Your Grace,” the man answered, indicating that he had swiftly worked out Christian’s identity. “But you could always get in through the side door in the kitchen garden. Old Bert watches there at night, and it’s always open for late comers.”

“I’ll do that.” Christian nodded smartly, vaguely remembering the door the groom referred to. “Thank you, Mr.…?”

“Yates, Your Grace. Head Groom here these last twenty years.”

“Good man. Thank you, Yates.”

Walking through the kitchen garden, the storm only seemed to be gaining strength, branches and ropes of rain whipping at Christian’s face as the thunder and lightning put on a display overhead. He was soaked to the skin now, and he wanted nothing more than a hot drink, a change of clothes and a warm bed.

The kitchen garden door was open as promised, but “Old Bert” was snoring at a table rather than watching anything, several empty beer bottles at his elbow and a candle burning beside them.

Christian tutted quietly but chose not to wake the man up, instead taking his candle to light his way through the darkened kitchens and into the main house. He was astonished to find the servants’ area entirely deserted at this hour, especially given what he had been led to believe about the parties and visitors on the estate.

Were the stories exaggerated?

No, they were not. A sink filled with unwashed plates, trays and cutlery caught his eyes, especially given the glasses and empty champagne bottles stacked beside them. Empty champagne crates stacked by the cellar stairs further corroborated the evidence of social gatherings. There was certainly more party detritus than he would have expected to normally find.

Both the wedding and funeral had been six months ago now. Had no one ever cleared up after either event? Or was someone hosting gatherings of this size on a regular basis?

Either way, it was very lax for servants to retire before cleaning up properly, especially if this had been going on for months. His efficient housekeeper at Farbourne would never have allowed it. For estate security, there should also always be an able-bodied man or two on night watch duty. The lack of lighting bothered him, too. What was the butler thinking?

Christian resolved to speak to the staff tomorrow and make certain matters very, very clear to the senior servants. Things were about to change radically at Goldfield House. He supposed he would have to confront the Dowager Duchess at breakfast. Tonight, however, he’d had enough of everything and everyone and wanted only to sleep.

Finally in the main house, Christian made his way up the marble staircase, making several wrong turns before finally finding the wing he remembered contained the Duke of Goldfield’s suite. Still, he saw absolutely no one as he wandered.

Do the servants here do no work at all?!

Then, in contrast to the silence that reigned in the rest of the house, he heard strange noises from the passageway containing the Duke’s suite as soon as he reached the landing. It sounded like someone singing and jumping about, the sounds wrapped up inside all the racket of the storm.

A lesser man might have been afraid of such pandemonium coming from the rooms of someone recently deceased, but Christian did not believe in ghosts or supernatural nonsense of any kind. The thought of uneasy spirits haunting his unfortunate cousin’s chambers only crossed his mind as some sort of joke to relay to Andrew later over a drink or two.

Still, what the hell was going on in this house, and who was in the Duke’s suite at this hour?! He had been planning to sleep in there, assuming that if any bedroom in the house were prepared for use, it would be that one.

Letting himself in, he found the bedroom dark and empty. It appeared to have been deserted since Tobias’s untimely death, the bed remade but nothing else touched. A book on domestic water supply installation lay on the bedside table—the last work the previous Duke ever read, and a peculiar choice on the eve of his wedding, in Christian’s view.

Putting down the book, Christian noted that the strange sounds were coming from further inside—from the other rooms in the suite. Trying the door between them, he found it locked, with no key in the lock. He banged loudly.

“Who is that in there? Open this door immediately. I am the Duke of Goldfield, and I will be spending the night in these chambers.”

There was no answer and no pause in the chaotic singing and dancing on the other side of the door. Frustrated beyond measure, Christian hurled himself at the door and burst the lock open on the second attempt.

The sight before his eyes shocked him into silence for a few seconds before the wind blew out his candle, leaving the room lit only by a faint glow from a third adjacent room which he guessed to be the bathing or dressing room.

In this vague half-light, an extremely attractive young woman of medium height stood naked before the open windows, her long, wavy auburn hair falling around her generous breasts, and a stunned expression on her pale but beautiful face. Her hips and buttocks curved with the perfect temptation of a Greek marble statue of Venus made flesh.

Despite his tiredness and aches, Christian felt a powerful pang of lust.

That pamphlet had not done the Dowager Duchess justice, he noted. He’d wager that there wasn’t a man in London who wouldn’t want to bed this woman, given a chance. Would he have his chance tonight? He had not had a woman in months. Andrew would certainly have pressed his advantage in such a situation, but Christian had not entirely forgotten his purpose in coming here.

While he was debating how to proceed, Joan started to scream, evidently even more surprised at their meeting than he had been.

Folding his arms, Christian let her shriek her heart out as she looked frantically around the room and tried unsuccessfully to cover her nudity with her hands. The wailing of the storm through the open windows drowned out everything else.

He waited until she seemed to have run out of breath, and then walked across the room and closed both windows, shutting out the sounds of the storm. Finally, he turned back to her.

“Who are you? How did you get in here? What do you want?” she demanded, shrinking back from him.

Christian watched Joan vigorously tug on the bell pull to summon help, without making any move to stop her.

“Good idea.” He nodded approvingly. “I’ve been trying to summon the servants too and came to the conclusion that they were all drunk or absent, except the grooms. Perhaps your method will be more effective.”

Joan looked utterly confused by this statement and his reasonable behavior in their utterly unreasonable situation.

“You’ll never get away now,” she hissed, trembling. “Whatever you do, you blackguard!”

Christian threw back his head and laughed. She must have thought he was a criminal who had broken into the house and now planned to ravish her and steal her jewelry. When should he reveal his identity, he wondered?

“You beast!” she cried, only amusing him further.

Without warning, Joan then picked up a silver candle from a desk and rushed at him clumsily. She was certainly no fighter, he observed.

Far larger and stronger, Christian easily caught hold of her wrists and disarmed her, the candlestick falling to the floor with a heavy thump.

“Have you completely lost your mind?” he demanded sternly, looking into the frightened eyes that he now realized were emerald-green, a fine complement to her auburn hair and pale skin.

“I don’t know,” she gasped. “Who are you? What do you want from me?”

“I’m the Duke of Goldfield,” he told her plainly, “and I want you to pull yourself together.”

Horror flashed across her face as his words sank in.

Then a different emotion flashed across her face as she realized that she was standing naked in his arms. The deep blush in her cheeks and her inability to meet his eyes drove this fact home even more strongly to Christian too, especially when she struggled to escape him, her breasts quivering delightfully as he continued to hold her wrists.

“Let me go,” she protested. “You have no right to hold me, whoever you are.”

“Don’t I?” he challenged her, releasing her wrists but wrapping an arm around her waist, pulling her against him. “You’ve dragged me here from the other end of the country with your scandalous behavior. I’m exhausted, soaked and fed up. I must have some rights. According to some, it’s even your fault that I’m now the Duke of Goldfield. Were you too much for poor Tobias?”

“Let me go!” she said again, pushing at his chest to no avail, her writhing against him only succeeding in arousing him further.

“Whether it was your considerable charms that dispatched Tobias or some congenital weakness in him, let me assure you, Your Grace, that I am another kind of man—or beast. Your wiles are certainly no match for me, and I am more than ready to demonstrate this to you, should you so require it.”

“What are you even talking about?” Joan asked desperately. “Why are you doing this?”

Could this really be the fearsome, man-eating woman that some implied had done away with three husbands and was now on the hunt for a fourth?

She squeaked in affront as Christian pulled her against him more firmly, looking down into her face and wondering how her lips would taste. He knew that she must by now feel his physical reaction to her naked beauty, and he noticed the blush in her cheeks bloom further as his thickening manhood pressed against her belly.

“You blush like a maiden,” he observed, tilting her chin up to meet her eyes. “But surely you of all women have no reason left to feign such modesty in a man’s arms. Three husbands and God only knows how many others have surely held you like this.”

“You know nothing!” she snapped at him, and Christian saw that there were tears in her eyes now rather than anger.

Her reaction both intrigued and puzzled him. It also reminded him that regardless of the lady’s virtue, his actions were not those of a gentleman. Still, her form had fit so perfectly against him, and there were still other questions he wanted to ask.

Before he could interrogate her further, footsteps sounded somewhere nearby, and he remembered that she had tugged on the bell pull.

“Cover yourself,” Christian said quickly, releasing Joan and pointing to the room from which the light was coming. “Someone is coming. Do you have clothes in the bathing room?”

She nodded and hurried into the room, emerging a few moments later in a tightly fastened floral dressing gown and matching silk slippers, just as they heard voices in the empty bedroom.

“In here, please,” Christian instructed crisply, his voice that of a man used to being obeyed.

“Your Grace!” a portly, middle-aged woman exclaimed, her black uniform wrongly buttoned and her cap askew. “Forgive me, I had no idea of your arrival.”

This was presumably Mrs. Thomas, and the elderly man behind her with the black coat over a nightshirt must be Owens, the butler, again a figure he vaguely remembered from the past.

A group of curious, whispering maids and footmen hung back just out of the room, wanting to know what was happening. Only one came into the sitting room, a middle-aged woman with silver-streaked hair who marched immediately to Joan’s side and looked at her with concern.

Christian shed his cloak and jacket and handed them to Owens.

“See to these, Owens. I rode ahead, and my valet won’t be here for some weeks. Yates has stabled my horse, but it seems that animals are presently better attended to than humans in Goldfield House. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“My profound apologies, Your Grace,” Owens apologized, bowing. “You find us somewhat out of order since your cousin died so suddenly.”

The butler and housekeeper shot Joan venomous glances with these words, but she met them with dignity.

“I simply don’t care, Owens. This house is in disarray, and I won’t have it. Mrs. Thomas, I require a guest room for tonight. You can prepare this suite tomorrow.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Mrs. Thomas said with a dazed curtsey. “I am so sorry…”

But Christian had moved on and was no longer listening to her. He turned back to Joan with an implacable expression.

“As for you, Madam, take whatever is yours from the bathing room and return to your rooms. We will speak at breakfast.”

With narrowed eyes, he watched the Dowager Duchess retreat with her maid, observing the way her rounded hips swayed under her silk gown and imagining how it would feel to clasp them firmly in his hands as he knelt behind her…

Perhaps he should have instructed his cousin’s too beautiful widow to lock her door, but his exhaustion would surely protect any lady from him tonight.

The next morning arrived all too quickly for Joan.

“What will you wear, Your Grace?” Harriet asked anxiously, peering into the opened wardrobe while Joan stood beside her in petticoats, stays and stockings. “Most of your mourning dresses are still in the box that was sent from London.”

Joan had worn a black dress and bonnet for Tobias’s funeral almost six months ago, but apart from that single occasion, she had returned to her normal wardrobe. Once she had decided to take herself off the marriage market, and therefore out of societal expectations, such things as mourning dress conventions seemed unimportant.

“No, I’ll wear my pale green sprigged muslin,” she announced. “It suits me, and it’s comfortable for traveling if the new master of Goldfield House throws us out after breakfast.”

“But what will the Duke of Goldfield think when he sees you, Your Grace,” Harriet protested, “in a green summer dress, barely six months after his cousin’s death? Do let me choose something darker, at least. The gray walking suit?”

“Harriet, the new Duke has already seen me… in complete disarray.” Joan sighed, not having admitted to her maid that this did not only mean her dressing gown. “What does it matter now?”

Harriet only knew that Christian Turner had disturbed Joan in his rooms after her bath, having arrived unexpectedly and thrown the household into uproar.

Sorrowfully, she dressed her mistress in the green sprigged muslin dress before brushing out her hair and pinning it up in a loose braid at the back of her head. Completing her toilette, Harriet added the silver crucifix the late Earl of Windham had given Joan at sixteen and dabbed jasmine-scented perfume on her wrists and neck.

Looking at her reflection in the mirror, Joan remembered the girl she had been at sixteen, full of hopes and dreams for her life. When she smiled at herself, she could not help noticing that ten years had altered her smile from the carefree, dimpled expression of youth to something more tired and cynical.

It was probably better to be tired and cynical with a man like the new Duke of Goldfield, she presumed, remembering the exciting but fearful confusion of the way he had held her in his arms last night. She had never been naked before a man in her life and certainly never been touched and clasped so close to a man’s body.

The sensation of that embrace was like nothing Joan had ever felt before, and she shivered while recalling it. If he had wanted to, the Duke could very easily have ravished her on the spot. But he had not. Christian Turner seemed rather to think their encounter an amusing game or sport that she was bound to share and was entirely unaware that she did not know how to play.

As she descended the stairs for breakfast, she found that Goldfield House had become a hive of activity, with maids and footmen bustling about, tidying and cleaning everything that had been neglected since Tobias’s death.

Christian was already in the breakfast room and finishing a plate of bacon and eggs. Joan went to the other place setting laid out at the smaller of the two breakfast tables. The feel of his intense blue gaze on her as he bid her good morning unnerved her. Joan wished that they were eating at the larger table so that she could be further away from his disturbing presence.

“Good morning, Your Grace,” she forced herself to say with a small curtsey before she sat, wishing that she could control the flush that was already rising to her cheeks.

This man had seen and held her naked body, and she could not put that fact out of her mind. She remembered the feel of the rough, damp wool of his cloak against her breasts and the feel of his hard manhood against her belly. A distant aunt had explained to her men’s anatomy before her first wedding, and Helena had confirmed matters in more detail after her own wedding.

“Good morning,” Christian returned. “I trust you slept well after last night’s excitement? It certainly seems to have motivated the staff.”

His pointed inquiry increased her agitation, and her blush deepened further.

“Yes, thank you.” She nodded, although she had barely slept at all.

She poured herself some coffee and took a freshly baked bread roll from the basket.

“Your blushes become you even more in the sunlight, as does that very fetching green dress,” Christian remarked with a smile, glancing briefly either at the silver crucifix or the swell of her breasts above the neckline of her gown. “My cousin was a very lucky man. Or did he die before he had the chance to enjoy his luck?”

Joan fought back the urge to rise and run from the table. Had this man really just had the effrontery to ask her whether her marriage had been consummated or not?

She tried to calm herself with the thought that perhaps he, too, was thinking about the possibility of removing any untidy dower claims. She focused on Mr. Ewett’s advice.

“My family lawyer has advised me to seek only a third of my husband’s funds and no property, Your Grace. Naturally, I would retain my dowry and the assets I brought into the marriage.”

Christian nodded, amusement still evident on his face as he considered her words. Was this a serious conversation or not? Joan really could not tell.

“So very little? I did expect some larger claim from a professional widow, I must admit, but the marriage was a short one. Very, very short.”

He was mocking her, she decided, and nothing he said to her could be taken seriously. She resolved to write to Mr. Ewett straight after breakfast and ask him to deal with the dower negotiation on her behalf. Everything about this man disturbed and distracted her, from his confident manner to his teasing humor and the blue of his eyes.

“It is only what seems fair to both sides,” Joan added stiffly.

“I suppose so. It’s interesting that you make no claim to residence. That is surprising, given that you’ve remained in situ so long after Tobias’s death. Most widows would at least have moved out to the dower house. Still, if you do wish to stay at Goldfield longer, perhaps we could come to some civilized arrangement. You could even carry on throwing your parties, discretely.”

“Civilized arrangement?” Joan echoed, baffled by what he could mean.

Christian laid down his cutlery and raised an eyebrow with a mocking smile. “As I had the chance to observe at close quarters last night, you’re a very attractive woman, Duchess. The scandal sheets I’ve read imply that your character is more than flexible. It seems to me that if I could accommodate you here, you could surely accommodate me…”

“Oh!” Joan gasped as realization dawned on her. “How dare you?!”

Could he possibly mean what he said? Or was he only trying to provoke her?

“How dare I? What do you imagine I’m implying, Duchess?” he inquired. “Might I not only have been saying that two people sharing a house ought to show one another some consideration?”

Joan was close to rising from the table and slapping his presumptuous if handsome face under its head of dark hair. But if she did that, she feared that the Duke would only pull her onto his lap and she would be helpless in his arms again.

“Then, of course,” the Duke continued, “if I, or the dower house, displease you so very much, you are free to return to one of your properties. Or I could help you find another husband to take you off my hands? Even with your reputation, there might be quite a queue.”

“I am your cousin’s widow, Sir!” Joan stated with as much dignity as she could muster. “Where is your respect? What would Tobias have thought of you trying to… inveigle his wife into your bed as a condition for remaining in her own home?”

Christian only burst out laughing at her outburst and drank some coffee.

“Forgive me, you really are too easy to tease, Duchess. But do you really dare to talk to me about respect for Tobias? While sitting there in that dress after months of parties, and while the soil on my cousin’s grave hasn’t dried yet?”

“I can’t spend my whole life in mourning,” Joan argued. “Especially not in my own home.”

“Home?” he guffawed. “Is that what you call this? Well, I suppose that Goldfield House is your home, as much as Tobias was your husband. Which is to say, barely at all…”

“Is it any more your home?” she threw back. “You barely knew Tobias either.”

“Touché.” Christian smiled, raising his cup to her and then draining it, before rising from the table. “Let us mourn him together, shall we? Teasing or not, I’m sure I could exorcise poor old Tobias entirely from your memory in a single hour. However, perhaps it would be all too dangerous to be alone with you in a locked room.”

“You’re a beast!” Joan shouted at him, gripping the table as though she feared he would sweep her up and throw her over his shoulder.

Consideration of his rank and position only added to her trepidation. Christian Turner was the Duke of Goldfield and evidently an experienced man of the world, used to wielding his power and influence. He could wield it now to turn her life upside down all over again if he wished.

As he had already asserted, he was a world away from his cousin, a man with whom Joan had immediately known she would always have the upper hand. She did not have the upper hand now…

But Christian only laughed to himself as he walked past her and over to the door, where he paused for a moment longer, his face and voice now serious.

“I hope I’ve made myself clear. I do not trust you, Joan—Dowager Duchess of Goldfield or whatever name you use nowadays. Go home, go to the dower house, find yourself husband number four… or remain here under my authority and sufferance, and I will find you another husband myself. Those are your only options.”

Left alone at the table, Joan found that she was trembling with rage and a mélange of other difficult-to-classify emotions.

Those were her only options, were they? Well, it seemed to her that there was another option entirely. She could find ways to make Christian Turner’s life so difficult and miserable at Goldfield House that he would leave the estate and return to Farbourne!