Page 36 of Defending the Duke (The St. Clairs 4)

Laurel snorted. “Spoken like a true member of theton.”

“I worked for my living, Laurel,” Anthony said. “Being an officer, especially in a time of war, isn’t fun and games. Every time I went on the battlefield, I wondered if I would return alive—or if I’d be missing an arm. An eye. A leg. War crushes a man’s soul. His spirit. It crams his civility so far down that many find it hard to even return and live in society. I hate the man I had to become in order to survive. And I hate that I lost so many men under my command. I was lucky enough to come home, while they are lying in graves on the Continent.”

He fell silent, wondering why he’d bared his soul to her in such a manner. He turned to the window again, watching the rolling landscape pass.

Then he sensed her beside him. She had moved from the bench across from him to sit next to him. She took his hand in both of hers and lifted it to her lips, kissing it tenderly.

“I’m sorry war was so brutal, Anthony. That you had to fight to live every day. That guilt fills you because you survived and some of your command did not.”

He turned to chide her. To tell her he never wanted to speak of the war and his role in it. Instead, Anthony found himself lost in those luminous St. Clair eyes. The rosewater scent he’d noticed from the night they’d danced seem to fill him.

He wanted her. Now.

He refused to take a virgin in a moving carriage, especially since they must be close to Linwood. He could, though, indulge in a kiss.

His free hand moved to her nape, holding her in place as he moved closer to her. He brushed his lips softly against hers. Her hand tightened around his. It wasn’t enough, though. The need to taste her again tempted him and he eased her mouth open. His tongue slipped inside, colliding with hers. The faint taste of the strawberries and champagne they’d had at their wedding breakfast lingered. He swept his tongue around hers, teasing it, calling hers out to play with him.

And she responded. Lord, did she respond.

What she lacked in experience, Laurel made up for with enthusiasm. Her hands left his, sliding up his chest and latching on to his shoulders. Her tongue mated with his and then went to war, each of them wanting to dominate the other. His arms went about her, drawing her near, but it wasn’t enough. He grabbed her waist and pulled her into his lap, turning her so she leaned against the corner of the carriage.

Anthony kissed her as if there would be no tomorrow. That the only time they would share was here. Now. He kissed her slow and long. Deep. Then hard and fast. He broke away and kissed her cheeks. Her eyelids. Her brow. He returned, feasting on her mouth, ripples of desire coursing through him. The need he had for this woman surpassed anything he’d ever experienced. His mouth moved to her throat and licked where her pulse pounded. He nipped at it and she gasped, then he soothed it with his tongue. Her hands pushed into his hair and then held on to it tightly as she began kissing him and the process started all over again.

He might have kissed her until the sun fell and then rose tomorrow morning, but he sensed the carriage turning. Instinct told him they now moved up the lane and that Linwood was in sight. Anthony broke the kiss and cradled her cheek.

“We are almost there.”

“Oh!”

She started to scamper from his lap but he needed a final kiss. He made it soft and tender and then lifted her from his lap and seated her beside him. Her face was flushed with color and her lips swollen. Her green eyes sparkled with desire. He smoothed her skirts, hoping the servants would think they’d wrinkled during traveling. Fortunately, he’d refrained from pushing his fingers into her hair and freeing the raven locks. He would have hated to arrive at Linwood with pins scattered along the floor of the coach, her hair tumbling down her back.

The carriage made a wide sweep, coming to a stop. The door opened and Anthony climbed out. Surprise filled him. Two long lines of servants had formed, awaiting the arrival of the duke and duchess. He faced the carriage again and offered Laurel a hand. As her feet touched the ground she froze, seeing the mass of people that awaited them.

Turning to her, he bent and said low in her ear, “You are the Duchess of Linfield. These are your servants.”

He sensed her straighten as she looked out and a smile appeared, melting his heart and probably every one of the servants that stood before them.

A man stepped forward and Anthony assumed this was his butler. “Welcome home, Your Graces. I am Sanders.” He indicated the women who had joined him. “Mrs. Wallingford, Linwood’s housekeeper.”

Neither servant appeared familiar to him. He would have to check the estate records and see when they had been hired on.

“Thank you, Sanders,” he said crisply. “We’ll need baths for us both. My valet, Monkton, and Her Grace’s maid, Retta, are in a coach behind us. They can attend to us upon their arrival.”

“Very good, Your Grace,” Sanders said. Looking to Laurel, he asked, “Would you care to meet the Linwood staff, Your Grace?”

“Yes, Sanders,” Laurel said eagerly.

Anthony accompanied her, thinking she would nod and smile as she worked her way down the line. Not Laurel. She asked the name of every man and woman in both lines and remembered when she heard a surname twice, learning there were two sets of sisters who worked as maids and a pair of brothers who were grooms. She had a kind word for each servant and he could tell she was making a very good impression. It was for the best. She would be the one dealing with them, not him.

At the end, he recognized a man in his mid-fifties. They paused before him.

“Ross Woodward, Your Graces,” he said. “I don’t know if you remember me or not, Your Grace. I was an assistant steward when I first came to Linwood.”

“I do remember you,” Anthony said brusquely, ready to go into the house and avoid any talk of the past.

“Oh, you knew His Grace when he was a boy?” Laurel asked eagerly.

“I did, indeed, Your Grace. He was a sturdy little fellow. Athletic. Always into mischief.”

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