Wayward by Carole Mortimer
Chapter One
Rhodes Park, Cornwall
Autumn 1815
Gideon Rhodes,the Duke of Esher, sighed heavily as he stood at the study window of his home and watched the inevitable progress of the Chessington carriage down the gravel driveway leading to the main house on his Cornish estate.
The inevitable invasionof Lady Lydia Montague, the daughter of the deceased Earl of Chessington, into Gideon’s home.
Well…that invasion would be as much as Gideon allowed it to be. Which was no further than her being a mostly undemanding presence in his household, if he had his way.
Quite what had possessed Chessington to leave the guardianship of his only child, a daughter to boot, in the hands of a man whose past was shrouded in scandal was beyond Gideon’s comprehension.
He and Michael had been friends once, mainly because they had both also been friends with Prince George, the heir to the English throne and now the Prince Regent.
The friendship had been made easier because Chessington’s Kent estate had bordered Gideon’s, and the two men had socialized when in the country.
But Gideon’s friendship with Prinny had lapsed with his absence from London, and he and Michael hadn’t so much as spoken in possibly ten years or more. Gideon had known the other man had a motherless daughter in the nursery at the time. It seemed that daughter was now of marriageable age, but had not yet found herself a husband.
When informed of the guardianship, Gideon had questioned Michael’s lawyer as to whether or not there was a maiden aunt or some other widowed or spinster female relative who could have taken Lydia into her household until she married.
Michael’s lawyer had informed him there were no spinsters or widowed relatives suitable for Lydia to reside with or have live with her. She had a companion, apparently, who was distantly related to her, but that young lady was also an orphan and impoverished.
Other than that, there was only one other distant cousin, and he had inherited the Chessington title.
This man had resided in Scotland for many years, with his wife and six children. A wife who, once the family made the move from Scotland to Chessington House in London, did not wish to have another female living in her home.
There was also the unmissable fact Lydia did not seem to have so much as a suitor, let alone a betrothed.
Which caused Gideon to wonder if perhaps she was hideously unattractive.
He gave a disgusted snort. Many men, fortune hunters, would not be deterred by a female’s lack of beauty as long as a union would come with a sizeable dowry. Many a marriage had been made, and often successfully, under such less-than-ideal circumstances.
After all, Lydia was nineteen years of age and had already been out in Society for two years. Long enough for a wealthy young lady to have found herself a husband, whether or not she was beautiful. Indeed, at that age, Lydia was in danger of becoming a spinster herself.
Or perhaps her lack of a suitor wasn’t because of her looks but because she was one of those women who found fault with everything and everyone?
Gideon did not remember Michael’s wife, Alicia Montague having died in childbirth some fifteen years ago, along with Michael’s son and heir. What little Gideon did remember of Alicia was of her being a pretty and obliging woman. Nor had she seemed overly critical of others on the few occasions he had spoken to her at a ball or some such.
No, there must be another reason Lydia Montague was not yet betrothed to marry.
Perhaps she was a shrew?
Even a fortune could not be made to sweeten that particular fault in a woman.
And while I have been standing here lost in ridiculous thoughts about the possible reason for my ward’s lack of a husband, the carriage carrying her to my home has already come to a stop in front of the house.
Gideon stepped back so that he was hidden behind one of the window curtains as one of his footmen opened the carriage door and lowered the steps for the passengers to alight.
He reeled back on his heels, his senses assaulted, as a young woman stepped down onto the gravel driveway.
Light.
Bright, iridescent light.
It surrounded the young woman as warm as the orange glow of a sunset in early summer.
Everything about the young woman’s appearance seemed to engender and add to that warmth and light.
The light brown velvet bonnet she wore did not hide nor detract from the beauty and gleam of the russet-colored hair beneath.
Her face looked as if it had been bathed in gold, and her eyes, as she looked up toward the frontage of the house, were the warm green of new shoots upon the hedgerows and trees in springtime.
Her cheeks were round and red as a freshly ripened apple.
Her nose was small and slightly turned up at the end.
Her lips…
Dear God, her lips were plump and red, and would no doubt look scandalously erotic sucking a man’s cock.
She wore a velvet cloak over her diminutive height, one that matched her bonnet in color, making it impossible for Gideon to ascertain whether or not her figure was slender or plump.
Gideon’s preference leaned towards plump; he liked generous hips to hold on to when he was pounding his cock into a woman.
The same cock which was now engorged and throbbing inside his pantaloons.
Not only were his thoughts totally inappropriate, given the circumstances, but when had his cock last become so hard and demanding merely from looking at a woman? When had he last even had thoughts of fucking a woman, any woman?
In the past, he had been a physical person by nature, and he had enjoyed extensive sexual encounters and liaisons during the years before his marriage. He had thought—mistakenly—that marriage would provide him with a woman with whom he could share a true sensual affinity. One where they loved and explored and experimented together to discover what gave them both pleasure.
Now aged seven and thirty, it was hard to believe he had ever been that naïve.
His marriage to Harriet had been a series of never-ending conflicts of interests between them, with absolutely no sexual exploration or experimentation. How could there be the latter when Harriet disliked everything to do with the marriage bed.
Gideon liked to spend the morning in bed making love. Harriet preferred to dress in one of her fashionable gowns before visiting the shops and being seen about Town. After which she would invariably have luncheon or afternoon tea with a group of her closest—and equally as gossipy—friends.
Gideon despised balls and soirees, and whilst he had attended them in his search for a wife, once married, he had made an appearance in Society only for Harriet’s sake. It had still not been often enough for her liking. In the end, she had begun to attend those entertainments alone, and seemed far happier doing so.
Gideon liked to sit at home and read a good book, with a decanter of brandy on the table beside him. Harriet claimed that reading was boring.
As was horse riding, unless it was in the park and she was wearing a new riding bonnet and habit she wished to be seen in and be flattered by all the single young gentlemen also out riding. At which time Gideon’s company was not needed.
All differences Gideon should perhaps have recognized before he married Lady Harriet Beecher, as she’d been called before their marriage.
Except twelve years ago, he had been aged only five and twenty, and like many a besotted suitor, he had been completely enamored with the young woman he had chosen to be his wife. Harriet’s fair-haired beauty, fashionably curvaceous figure, and happily flirtatious nature had appealed to him like no other.
In her turn, Harriet had been only eighteen and bedazzled by the idea of becoming a duchess. She had apparently quite forgotten that a duke accompanied that title. Not just any duke, either; even at five and twenty, Gideon’s reputation was of one who did not suffer fools gladly.
It had taken only a weeklong and tedious honeymoon at his estate in Kent for Gideon to know that he and his seven-years-younger bride were totally unsuited to being married to each other.
Most of all in a sexual way.
Harriet had been a virgin on their wedding night, and Gideon had taken every care with her that he could before breaching that innocence. Harriet had still cried and wailed for hours afterward. The same thing had happened the second, third, and fourth night of their honeymoon. At which point, Gideon had given up visiting her bedchamber, along with any idea of the lazy hours of lovemaking he had once envisaged between them.
He had tried again, a month later, with the same result.
It had been the same a month after that, and then when he tried again every few weeks for the first six months of their marriage. It always resulted in Harriet’s reluctance before and tears and accusations of his sexual depravity afterward. Quite what depravity Harriet was referring to, Gideon had no idea. Their sexual dealings with each other could not have been blander if they had not bothered at all.
Gideon wasn’t a deviant in his sexual preferences, but before his marriage, he admitted to enjoying any number of sexual positions and pleasures. He hadn’t been so much as allowed to touch Harriet between her thighs, let alone taste her there.
Gideon had hoped that perhaps things would change after Harriet announced she was with child. He had heard that many women became sexually insatiable during their months of pregnancy.
Not Harriet. She had become even more closed off to him, claiming there was no reason for them to make love at all now that she was carrying his heir.
When she unfortunately lost the baby during the fourth month of the pregnancy, she had banished Gideon from visiting her bedchamber ever again.
Gideon had been devastated by the loss of their child too, and would have welcomed offering each other comfort. Not in a sexual way, but emotionally.
Harriet remained locked away to him, emotionally as well as physically.
Nor did he push Harriet for a return to sexual relations, hoping that when she was ready, she would tell him so.
For the remainder of their two years of marriage, she never had.
They had not even resided in the same household most of the time. Harriet had preferred their London home and occasionally a visit to their Kent estate, provided none of those visits coincided with Gideon also being in residence.
It had been during one of their rare times together in their London home when the fire occurred which had resulted in Harriet’s death. The rumors had started immediately, most prominently by Harriet’s family and friends, that Gideon had started the fire deliberately in the hope of being rid of his wife, but had then been trapped in the flames himself.
His own horrendous injuries from the fire had required long months of being attended to by several doctors before he was well enough to travel to Cornwall and remain there. Months when he not only lost all interest in sex, but it was as well that he had, because no decent woman could now bear to even look at him.
He had not been completely celibate since moving to Cornwall ten years ago. When his sexual needs became too intense, he would visit a woman in Truro, under cover of darkness and with no candles lit inside the room, so that she would not become alarmed by the scars upon his face and body. She was paid handsomely not to do so.
Gideon’s attention returned to the young lady now standing outside his home, the first woman to ignite his sexual interest in a very long time.
Ignite it?
Gideon felt as if a fire had spontaneously combusted inside him, awakening long-dead longings for that one woman who would not only accept his sexual needs but be willing to explore deeper pleasures together.
This woman?
Neither Michael nor Alicia had had that same russet-colored hair, so perhaps the fates were being kind to him for once and the glowing young woman was Lydia’s impoverished companion or maid rather than his ward. If so, a relationship for their mutual pleasure would not be completely out of the question.
She was much younger than Gideon, of course, possibly only twenty at most. But that did not mean she was innocent of physical pleasure, or that she would be averse to visiting the duke’s bedchamber once her other duties with her mistress were over for the day.
Good God, was he seriously standing here contemplating bedding his ward’s companion or maid?
No, he was contemplating bedding the beautiful and glowing young woman standing outside his home. A young woman who looked more than capable of meeting, if not exceeding, his sexual demands. The throbbing of his engorged cock agreed with that in theory, at least.
Could desiring his ward’s companion be considered deviant? Gideon had been away from Society for so long, he no longer knew what was considered correct behavior.
He—
While he had been lost in his first unhappy, and then lascivious thoughts, the red-haired woman’s admiring moss-green gaze had moved from the top floor of his four-story home, and she was now looking quizzically into the window of his study on the first floor.
Damn it, had he moved or jostled the curtain in some way so as to alert her to his presence?
The young woman continued to look at the study window for several more seconds before her attention was distracted by a second young woman stepping down from the carriage.
A second young woman who was Gideon’s ward?
Shorter than her companion, she wore a black bonnet and cloak over severely styled brown hair and a discernably slender figure.
Black for mourning her deceased father, Lord Michael Montague, the Earl of Chessington.
A weight lifted from Gideon’s chest as he realized this must indeed be his ward.
His attention immediately returned to the glowing young woman as she assisted and then linked her arm with that of her hesitant mistress. She then appeared to speak several words of encouragement in order to persuade the dark-haired woman into accompanying her toward the house.
Informing Gideon that his ward was as reluctant to have him as her guardian as he was to be so.
His mouth tightened, and he turned away from the window once the two young women had entered the house and were no longer in his sight.
A lack of vision of them, of her, which did not cause his cock to deflate in the slightest.
He frowned at this lack of control over his own body.
A knock sounded on Gideon’s study door seconds later to distract him. “Enter,” he said tersely.
His butler stood in the open doorway. “Lady Lydia Montague and her companion, a Miss Charlotte Babcock, have arrived, Your Grace.”
Babcock?
Gideon’s lips tilted slightly upward at the irony of that young lady’s name after his recent imagining of having her down on her knees in front of him, sucking his cock.
His butler’s eyes widened slightly at this uncharacteristic almost-smile from Gideon. In truth, Gideon admitted there had been little for him to smile about since his exile to Cornwall.
The gossip about Harriet’s death had followed him here, of course. As a consequence, the Society friends he’d once had in the area also kept their distance, unwilling to be ostracized from London Society by association. One or two older single gentlemen, not included in Society themselves, such as the local squire and doctor, occasionally invited him into their homes for drinks or dinner. But otherwise, Gideon kept himself busy managing the estate and spending his evenings reading.
Which perhaps accounted for his instant and uncharacteristic response to the beautiful young woman waiting downstairs.
“I have shown them into the blue sitting room,” the butler continued at his silence. “Cook is preparing refreshments for them.”
The implication being that Smythe was now anticipating Gideon going downstairs to introduce himself to his ward and her companion.
Something Gideon was reluctant to do, and not only because his cock was still hard and throbbing.
He had no doubt that Society would have regaled his ward with the wicked tales of his cruelty toward his wife and his attempt to kill her by setting fire to his own home. Which probably accounted for her reluctance to even enter his home a few minutes ago and having to be encouraged to do so by her companion.
Even if they had not, the usual reaction of women to the scars upon Gideon’s face was for their gazes to be quickly averted so they did not have to look at him. Or, as had happened on one memorable occasion a few years ago, for that young lady to run whimpering from the room.
He had no wish to hurry to see that fear or loathing on the face of the beautiful redhead waiting downstairs. Although either of those emotions would still be more acceptable than the pity he occasionally encountered.
Despite her appearance, he sincerely hoped that his ward was stronger in nature than she looked. Otherwise, the next two years of his guardianship of her were going to be uncomfortable for the both of them.
The companion had certainly appeared to have more of a backbone when she had good-naturedly chivvied her mistress into entering the house. No doubt her lot in life had dictated she needed to have one. It could not be easy for a woman to be so reliant upon the approval of another female in order to maintain her position in life, even that of a poorly paid companion.
Or perhaps, in this case, not quite so poorly. Gideon had already taken control of Michael’s ongoing financial obligations toward both the maid and companion of Michael’s daughter, and the companion was certainly paid above what he might have expected.
A sudden thought occurred to him as to why that might be. Now that he had seen that companion for himself, how beautiful she was, he couldn’t help but wonder if she had not also been a companion of another sort to Michael.
If so, that might make it easier to suggest a similar arrangement between the two of them. Even though Gideon hoped she had not been a paid mistress to Michael.
Gideon was not in the least straitlaced, and God knows he did not judge others for what they had to do in order to survive in this often cruel world. But he hoped that bright-eyed young lady, if she had been involved with Michael, had not been forced into accepting that physical relationship with her employer out of financial or other necessity.
Had he not envisaged enjoying that same physical relationship with her himself just minutes ago?
Not entirely, no. Not when he was desirous of persuading Miss Babcock into coming to his bed without financial enticement.
Although that was a big hope, considering no woman had done so in the past ten years.
“Your Grace?”
“Inform the ladies I will be with them shortly, Smythe,” he answered the butler tersely.
Gideon needed several more minutes to compose himself before going downstairs to greet the ladies.
Lydia stoodbeside one of the tall windows in the elegantly appointed sitting room as she waited for her guardian to join them. She was too restless and had already spent far too much time today confined in the carriage to be able to sit on one of the elegant blue couches as Charlotte had. Instead, Lydia looked out the window at the perfectly kept grounds and the churning gray-blue sea she could see in the distance.
She wasn’t restless because she was in awe of the expensive furnishings or the silk paper upon the walls. She had lived in luxurious homes like this one all her life and was not overwhelmed by such opulence.
No, her nervousness was due to the fact she was to at last meet Gideon Rhodes, the Duke of Esher, and the man who was to be her guardian for the next two years. Longer, if she remained unmarried. It would be deeply frowned upon for single lady of Society, even once aged one and twenty, to set up her own household.
No, for the foreseeable future, the homes of the duke would also be her own. Whether he also resided in those homes would be his choice, not hers.
After her father died, Lydia had feared for her own future, knowing she had no relatives she might live with. Then the family lawyer had informed her that the Duke of Esher had been named in her father’s will as her guardian.
Lydia had never even heard of the duke until that moment. He had certainly not been seen in Society for the two years that she had been a part of it.
She had been bombarded with gossip about Esher once it became known in Society that she had become the duke’s ward after her father succumbed to injuries he had received at Waterloo.
Lydia wasn’t usually one to listen to idle tittle-tattle. But as her father had never so much as mentioned the other man to her, let alone that he had chosen him to be her guardian, that gossip about the duke was all she currently knew of him.
They said he had been a cruel and uncaring husband.
That he had murdered his wife when, after two years of marriage and a miscarriage, she had failed to give him an heir.
That he had become a recluse on his estate in the wilds of Cornwall after he was hideously scarred in the fire which had ended his wife’s life and resulted in the accusation of his having murdered her. As far as Lydia was aware, that accusation had never been proven, but the duke had still been ostracized by Society.
No one, not a single gentleman or woman of the ton, had seen fit to mention that Gideon Rhodes, scarred or not, was also one of the handsomest gentlemen Lydia had or would ever set eyes upon!