Page 2 of Good Duke Gone Hard

As she clung to him, she quickly realized his arms hung, unmoving at his sides, so she slid down and looked up into empty eyes.How could his eyes be so blank after all they had been through? How could he bottle up all of his emotions and hide them within such a hard exterior?If only she could take that bottle and smash it. She would love to see what he would do then.

But she didn’t have a bottle to smash, only a face to smack. And with no response from him, her reaction escalated to compensate. And then after the slap, she ran. She couldn’t bear to let him see her so vulnerable while he remained so stoic. She couldn’t let him see her holding in all the memories of all the tears she had shed over him.

Only later did she find out he was suffering from something called amnesia. That’s what the doctors were calling it anyways. He didn’t remember anything. How could he not?

And now he was here, but not. He remembered nothing but the name Chatsworth. Well, what good was that? And, and, and, to top it all off, Gregory, Jonathan’s best friend, who would have been the person to help him unlock his memories, was away on his honeymoon. Who knew when they’d be back? Summer. And then everything would change again.

At first Mary and Gregory refused to leave, saying they would help with Jonathan. But Jonathan insisted that they take their honeymoon and spend the winter somewhere warm. He didn’t want to be a burden. Gregory had already shared as much as he could with Jonathan, and Jonathan reassured him that he wasn’t going anywhere. The doctor that he had been communicating with, recommended that Jonathan stay in one place, undisturbed for a while, in hopes that some memories would come back.

The doctor had no other reasonably helpful advice, just keep him relaxed and around familiar, or what should be familiar, environments. He was not to be upset, jarred, or overstimulated. He was to slowly settle back into whatever memories naturally returned to him.

With Gregory and Mary gone, it all fell to Margaret. Ugh. An impossible task. There were memories she could share, but there were others, precious, that she wanted to keep safe and hers. And far too many memories to sift through all at once.

The pond came into view, and with it, a memory of her and Jonathan.

When she was ten, she had been following Gregory and Jonathan around all morning. At first she tried to be sneaky, but once she knew her efforts were futile, she simply traipsed along behind them, waiting for opportune moments to strike.

Her chance came much later in the day than she had expected, long after any grand schemes she had plotted turned to mush. Standing on the bank, Gregory and Jonathan were arguing over who could swim the fastest when verbal arguing turned physical. At the precise moment that Gregory decided to lash out and shove Jonathan into the pond, Margaret had been directly behind him. So instead of Jonathan splayed out in the pond, Margaret was.

Gregory was bent in half, incapacitated, laughing himself senseless. Jonathan’s lips twitched unsure whether to laugh or show concern.

As payback, she decided to take advantage of how little Jonathan knew her. “Help! Help! I can’t swim.” For effect, she thrashed her arms and kicked her legs. No one was jumping in after her. But she was too far into her prank to let a silly thing like pride, or the need to breathe, pull her out of it. She stopped her thrashing and went belly down in the water, motionless.One second, two seconds, three seconds…

And then a huge splash and strong arms were pulling her up out of the water against a lanky but sturdy body. She began flailing her arms again. He deserved it for waiting that long. She didn’t care that he was fully clothed and she might be giving him bruises. She was sure they’d be small.

Jonathan bellowed, “Be still!” But then close to her ear, he whispered, “It’s on.”

She was ten, he was sixteen. It was all innocent fun. The pranks. The challenges. They competed to outdo each other over everything. Fishing, racing, swimming, riding, climbing trees. Of course he always won. Except when he didn’t. In those cases he’d always say that he had let her win. She had no way of knowing the truth for certain.

She remembered those days fondly. She would share those memories with Jonathan. Probably. Maybe.

But she would definitely not share all the pond memories with him.

It was nearing the end of summer, right before Jonathan disappeared and right after Margaret had entered society. Margaret was seventeen and Jonathan four and twenty. They were in the middle of an anomalous heat wave.

Margaret had just spent hours tangling herself in sheets, to stay modest, but waking up sweating. Nothing was cooling her down, and she couldn’t imagine sitting another second in her damp, dank room. She had woken up just before dawn, so she scrambled to grab a shawl and raced on tip toe out of the house toward the pond. It was calling her. Beckoning her to find relief in its delectable waters.

Down to her nightshift, she slipped into the water. The waters cooled her toes, her thighs, and her thoughts.

Until she heard someone clearing their throat.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were coming here.” It was Jonathan.

What the hell was he doing here? When did he arrive at Chatsworth? Why can I see his bare chest? And when the devil had his arms grown so large?

Her heart started to race. Mayhap the water was too cold. But then why were her thighs on fire? And why did she feel as though there was a hook in her stomach attached to a line that Jonathan was reeling in to himself?

“I’ll leave.” She began to pop out of the water, unaware that her nightgown was now entirely translucent.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered.

She moved toward him in concern. “Are you alright?”

“Please,” he threw his hand over his eyes. “For the love of all that is holy, do not move.”

“Why?”

“Just let me think.”

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