SWNOVELS A Vixen for the Duke: Chapter 8
“What a lovely day!” Bridget dropped onto the sofa and let out a sigh of relief, happy to be in the comfort of her couch. “We had a lovely time, but even with all the money in the world, His Grace would not buy a comfortable garden chair. I am as sore as the day I was born.”
“You spent a lot of time with His Grace,” Lucy said, her eyes fixed on Harriet. “Yet again.”
“Lucy!” Harriet didn’t want any of this mentioned in front of their aunt, but it was too late.
Bridget perked up with the interest of a bloodhound. “Really,” she cooed. “Oh, Harriet, that little heart of yours never stops dreaming no matter how forlorn you are.”
“I—I don’t…” Harriet trailed off, swallowing hard.
“Harriet, you really need to cleanse your life of that man,” Lucy said.
“If he would leave me alone, maybe I could!”
Lucy groaned, slinging herself across the couch as if she were weak. She grabbed a pillow and slammed it into her face. Again, she groaned loudly, her voice muffled by the pillow.
“Oh, goodness,” Bridget said, resigning herself to a new cross stitch.
“What is wrong with you?” Harriet shouted at her sister. “Stop throwing a fit!”
Lucy pulled the pillow back and sat up, her eyebrows furrowed. “I am trying to protect you! You’re vulnerable right now. Why would you let His Grace break your heart?
Harriet’s face reddened. She bunched her fists up, her fingernails digging into her palms. “I am not!” Would Lucy change her mind if she knew just what the Duke had said to her earlier that day? “He offered me his coat. That has to mean something!”
“Oh, dear,” Bridget mumbled. “If Lord Murrey offered you his coat, would you be in love with him?”
Harriet crossed her arms in a huff. “No.”
“Perhaps you can remember to do the Lord Frogington test before you go falling in love.” Bridget sighed.
“Well, haven’t you fallen in love with him for such reasons?”
“He has offered me his coat and I told him to keep it.” Bridget shook her head. “That man is unforgivable when he becomes cold. I would rather be left to my own devices. Maybe that is part of why I love him, yes? He respects my autonomy, and I respect his.”
“That is not how I wish to be married,” Harriet said. “I want to be taken care of.”
Bridget tilted her head. “And that is the true nature of femininity. We only have one life to live, so why not allow each of us to live it the way we please?” she muttered, focusing on threading her needle, her tongue poking slightly out of her mouth. “I am untraditional, and you are traditional. Neither is right. The only correct way to be a woman is to be steadfast in your values.”
Harriet stilled. She felt ashamed that she had mocked her aunt’s choices when she had only wanted to understand them better. Maybe Bridget was right. It was rude of Harriet to feel so hurt and lonely that she dragged everyone under with her. Maybe a strong woman wasn’t a solitary woman but a confident woman…
Oh, that’s brilliant!
Harriet leapt up and pressed a kiss to her aunt’s forehead with a force unmatched. “Oh, thank you!” she exclaimed. “You are so wise! Thank you!” She turned away and headed for the hallway.
“Did I say something, dear?”
“Beats the hell out of me.”
“Lucy! Don’t curse like that.” Bridget swatted her niece’s arm.
“You do.”
“Mhm.” Bridget paused. “Don’t make it a habit, or your father will have the worst to say to me.”
Lucy took a deep breath. “The good news is that Harriet is no longer depressed. The bad news is that she is now in a frenzy. Right on schedule too.”
“Shut up, Lucy!” Harriet shouted as she ran up the stairs.
In her bedroom, she found the Duke’s coat. It was still a little damp, and she had not managed to get all the dirt out, but it would have to do. She slung it over her shoulders and ran back down the staircase.
Morgan started at a knock on the door to his study. He perked up. “Come in.”
The door opened, and a footman bowed before announcing, “Your Grace, you have company.”
Morgan sighed. “Can you have my uncle take our callers? I am in the middle of something.”
“Lord Murrey is away, Your Grace. And I believe the young woman is looking for you.”
Morgan set his ink quill down. Harriet? What was she doing here? “Send her in.”
The footman paused. “In your study, Your Grace?”
“Yes,” Morgan said.
The footman left hesitantly. Morgan stood up and made himself presentable. He wore a white shirt that he cuffed around his elbows and a blue waistcoat. If he had known he would be having company, he may have put on a coat.
In the doorway, Harriet stood holding the coat he had given her. She smiled. He studied her for a moment. Earlier in the day, they had been at odds with each other. He wasn’t certain where he stood in her opinion, and to be honest, he had been assessing his feelings for her all the same.
“To what do I owe the pleasure, Miss Harriet?”
“Well, I…” She drew his attention to the coat, which was awkwardly flung over her arm. “I cleaned it the best I could,” she said.
Morgan chuckled, shaking his head. “I was not expecting to see it again.” He crossed the room and reached for it. She gingerly placed it in his hands, her neck craned up to look at him. “It looks…” he trailed off. The coat was covered in splotch after splotch of mud, and all of the scrubbing that she had done had only worked the dirt further into the fabric. It was sweet that she had tried, but she had obviously never done laundry a day in her life. “Thank you.” He smiled, tight-lipped.
He turned to set the coat on his desk, and she followed after him. “Is that not suitable?” she asked.
“I would not have given you the coat if I expected to wear it again.”
Harriet threw her hands up as an indignant huff slipped from her lips. “Are you serious? I scrubbed that co—”
“Miss Harriet,” Morgan said, spinning around to face her. She stopped walking to avoid bumping into him. Her eyes were full of more emotion than he’d ever seen on her face. She had been rather downtrodden the times he’d met with her previously. He couldn’t blame her. After all that she’d been through, she deserved to feel whatever she wanted to feel. “I am truly not pressed about the coat, although I appreciate the gesture.”
She crossed her arms, looking small under his shadow. He leaned back against the desk and looked down at her, admiring her rosy cheeks and the delicate beauty of her lips. He had been spending too much time thinking about what it might feel like to kiss her. Maybe only in his imagination. She was so sweet and naïve that she would hardly know what to do with herself.
He realised after a moment that he’d been admiring her without a word for perhaps a moment longer than was comfortable. Harriet shifted.
“I do not understand you,” she admitted.
“I am not so complicated,” he said.
She squinted as if she believed his words held more meaning than he’d intended. There was a long pause, and she studied him in silence for a moment, her eyes challenging him. “Are you a dolt?”
Morgan stared at her, dumbfounded, until a gasp of laughter escaped his mouth. She didn’t say it maliciously. In fact, she’d said it with genuine curiosity. What a strange question that was. Fools lacked the self-awareness to properly judge their own ignorance, after all, so it hardly seemed a fair question. “Pardon me?”
“My sister says all men are foolish in some way or another.”
“Your sister?” he asked. “How old is she? Sixteen?”
“Eighteen.”
“And what does she know of men?”
Harriet considered his question, her head bobbing lightly. “A great deal, apparently.” She paused. “I, however, like to believe that she’s not right if only to make myself feel better. I don’t think you’re stupid.”
He nodded. “I think it depends on the day,” he said. “I can, in fact, be a dolt.” He held back his laughter and kept a straight face. He did feel like she made him a little more foolish. It had been a while since he’d allowed a woman to live so frequently in his daydreams.
“And you admit this?” she asked. “How honest.”
“What choice do I have? Would you believe me if I said otherwise?”
Harriet shrugged. “Well, I am very glad I returned your coat in that case. It seems I have read too much into our interactions. Had I known you were a fool beforehand, I would have saved myself much strife, because I am equally as much a fool, as I have well been made aware by the women in my life.”
There was a pause, and Morgan studied her face, trying to figure out what was going on in her head. She seemed more hyper than she’d been in the days before. It was as if she was saving up all her energy to unleash it all at once in an onslaught of ridiculous questions and jabs.
“May I call you Harriet?”
Her eyes widened. “Why?”
He looked to the side, thinking her question over. “In a few months, we will be as good as cousins, hmm?”
“Oh—” She paused, her mouth still forming the shape of an O. “Oh my goodness gracious, you’re right!”
“So, why not call me Morgan?”
“You are doing it again.”
“What am I doing, Harriet?” He hadn’t been doing anything, he thought. Maybe just some innocent banter.
She made a noise of discontentment. “Being confusing.”
Morgan smiled at her before he slipped off his desk and sat in his chair. He pulled a stack of papers towards him and looked it over. After a moment, she stayed standing before his desk, looking more confused than he’d intended to leave her.
“Well?” he said. “Go on, then, make yourself comfortable. I have much work to do, so if you intend to talk, I will have to ask you to leave.”
Harriet awkwardly meandered over to the couch and sat, her knees pressed together and her gloved hands folded demurely in her lap. Through the window, Morgan could see the pinks and oranges of the twilight sky rippling overhead. He inhaled quickly as a question came to mind. “What has gotten into you this evening?”
“You told me not to talk,” she said, crossing her arms and looking away as if to snub him.
“It is only a question.”
“Well.” Harriet took a deep breath. “As you have found out, my life has taken a turn for the worst. I am only twenty years old, but in days past, I have resigned myself.” She sighed. “Only today, I realised that my aunt is quite intelligent. She was talking about confidence, and then it clicked. She is as strange and wonderful as she is because she has the confidence to be that way. Now, isn’t that something?”
Morgan smiled and leaned his chin on his palm, looking at her dumbfounded. He had seen something in her in days past, but today, she was completely different. Her energy and passion were infectious. “Mhm.”
“I am going to attempt to be confident again. The way I was before Jeremy made me the laughingstock of London.”
“In what ways are you aiming to be more confident?” he asked.
“Well, for one,” she began, “I will no longer allow those awful chickens to herd me around. I will be in charge.”
“You will be the rooster,” he pointed out.
“Yes,” she nodded, only to pause. “Wait, no, that’s not it.”
Morgan smiled sheepishly. “In a sense, though.”
“No, no!” He loved that scrunched-up look on her face when things didn’t go according to plan for her. She sighed. “In another, I will be putting myself back on the marriage market.”
Morgan raised his eyebrows. “You… Do you have a suitor in mind?”
“Well… no. But I am certain I will meet a good man. Even if he looks a bit like a bullfrog…” she trailed off, frowning.
Morgan swivelled in his chair, having given up on getting any work done when she was so much more entertaining. “A rooster and a bullfrog… I am not certain that marriage would prove harmonious.”
She raised her open palms in indifference. “Yes, well, I am only being realistic.”
“Harriet,” he said. Immediately, she looked up, attentive under his gaze. Morgan couldn’t help but grin. “That does not sound very confident.”
Harriet sighed, her posture folding in as if she was deflating before him. “I cannot become confident in just one day,” she said. “These things take time.”
He nodded slowly. While their conversation was enjoyable, he was starting to wonder why she was here, when her aunt and sister were likely better confidantes. “May I ask you a question, then?”
Harriet had a plan when she had entered his study, only now it seemed her train had been completely derailed and she was no longer sure if asking Morgan whether he felt anything for her was very wise. But he had a question, and the way he said it, so breathy and hesitant, made her wonder if he was thinking the same things.
“Anything,” she said, her chest fluttering.
Over the past few days, all of her daydreaming and musings had come to a grinding halt when Jeremy had run out of the church, arm-in-arm with another woman. After the ceremony, Emma’s husband, the Duke of Radford, had sported a bruise on his cheek. He had fought for her, but still, it didn’t feel like Jeremy would ever have to feel the way she had felt.
Morgan rose from his chair and went to stand in front of her. Seeing him so close made her feel all hot and stupid again. He was so tall, his shoulders so broad and muscular as if he could just pick her right up. She dared not let her eyes travel down further. She was a woman of God. “You still didn’t answer my question,” he said. “Why are you here?”
Harriet took a deep breath and looked down at her hands. She wasn’t entirely sure. Every feeling in her head was blaring loudly. Was this love? Was it stupidity? Was she trying desperately to feel anything but the numbness that had overtaken her?
Without another thought, she stood up. Her hands shook as she leaned up on her tiptoes, her fingers shaking as she touched his cheek. She placed one quick kiss on his lips before pulling away.
She dropped down to the balls of her feet, and her eyes went wide. She couldn’t believe what she just did. She’d wanted to kiss him, but she ought to have asked him first. Her cheeks burned at the thought that he might reject her after that.
He blinked, nodding softly. Her hand dropped from his cheek, and he took a deep breath. It shuddered in his chest. “I apologise if I—”
“No,” she interrupted. “I just… I am not sure what came over me.”
He paused, laughing softly. “Harriet, have you ever been properly kissed in your life?
“I—I don’t know what that means.”
He shook his head, his voice dropping to a whisper. “I don’t think you have.”
“I might have—”
Before she could finish, he leaned down, wrapping one hand around her head and pulling her waist flush against him with the other. Harriet gasped as his lips captured hers. At first, he was gentle, and she melted against him, her hand shaking at the top of his chest. She thought she’d been kissed before, but this was completely different. He hadn’t needed to say it. He wanted her. She could feel it from his hand tangling in her curly hair to his other pulling her closer and bunching up her soft blue dress.
Morgan’s lips were soft, his tongue brushing against hers gently, and before she knew it, she was clinging to him as the desire overtook her. He made her chest light up with a real mess of fireflies. Her hands felt restless, gently brushing against the back of his neck while his fingers delved into her curls. His hands were strong and certain as if he’d imagined holding her just like this.
His mouth left hers, and she felt disappointed, before he pushed her hair to the side and pressed his lips against her neck. She gasped again, digging the tips of her fingers into the back of his neck. Now that was new. No one had ever kissed her there. He made his way across the curvature of her neck, kissing every inch of her, trailing his tongue across her skin, making her skin flush with pleasure.
She leaned back further until he pulled his head back up and she could kiss him once more. She hadn’t known herself to have this much passion inside her. She’d never felt this way, as if it was impossible to keep her hands off someone. But then again, Morgan wasn’t just anyone. Hadn’t they had some kind of spark ever since they had met? If only they had all the time in the world, she’d stay here with him all evening and kiss him until she was all out of breath and ready to fall asleep in his arms.
His kiss slowed, and he tugged gently at her lower lip with his teeth. She moaned softly. He pressed one more kiss against her lips and leaned back. She stayed there, her eyes still closed, hoping that the moment wasn’t over, because once it was, she would have to look him in the eye and they would have to face the reality of having done something that neither of them could take back.
When she opened her eyes, he was looking back at her. Her heart lurched. She’d never been looked at like that, as if she was suddenly the only woman in the world, as if he considered himself so lucky just to get to kiss her. Maybe she would have thought he was just doing her a favour, since she obviously hadn’t been kissed like that before, but now, she wasn’t so sure. Could he have kissed her like that if he was indifferent to her?
“I… no, I suppose…” She paused, getting too lost in the moment to collect her thoughts. “I wouldn’t call that proper, not in the sense of… like I shouldn’t have done that… I shouldn’t have… You… You shouldn’t have… but I liked it.”
Morgan’s eyes were fixed on hers, two half-moons that cut through her in the gentlest way possible. He laughed softly, almost incredulous at how tongue-tied he’d made her. She placed her hand on his arm and ran it down to where he still held her hip. She squeezed his wrist, and he released her. She stumbled back, trying her best to make her hair look less like there had been someone else’s fingers tangled in it.
“Do you have feelings for me?”
“I—”
“Wait,” she stopped him. “Don’t answer that.”
She swallowed hard. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t need to know. She had come out to the country to heal and learn to be realistic and mature, and this wasn’t helping. This was specifically not helping.
“That was…” Harriet shook her head. “I am not sure if that was the answer to my problems.”
Morgan cleared his throat. “No, I apologise, I got equally carried away.” His throat bobbed.
“I shouldn’t—” they said at the same time and stopped once they realised they were saying the same nonsense. They shouldn’t have, but they did.
Harriet hurried over to the door, her eyes burning with frustration. She didn’t feel better. In fact, she felt worse. She felt confused. She should have listened to Lucy. Maybe then she wouldn’t be acting so foolishly on the heels of heartbreak. She groaned, stomping her foot. She turned around, her hand extended, pointing at him.
“Let’s just go back to the way things were before this happened,” she said. “My life is so complicated. I don’t need to be any more confused.” Her breathing was heavy, her chest rising and falling with frustration.
“Harriet, can we talk?” He advanced, but before he could say anything, she left, walking out the door with all the confidence she could muster.
Romance felt nice, but it wasn’t good for everyone. In fact, Harriet was disgraced all throughout London because of the allure of romance. Maybe it was real, in some cases. Her older sisters were happily married, but it was very rare that perfection happened three times in a row. Harriet was hurt and confused. As good as it felt, kissing Morgan was the last thing she needed. What she needed was to focus on moving forward. She needed her aunt to realise that romance wouldn’t make her happy, either.