A Duke Deceived Read Online Free PDF Page B

been able to look into his warm green eyes and detect a softness that lay beyond the stern cut of his jaw. He was solid in body and in mind. A great support. And much more than that, but she could not allow herself to harbor such hopes.
    It did not take long to get through London because few carriages and horse carts impeded their progress at this hour. Their only interruption was for the tollgates, which seemed to be all too frequent. Never had Bonny ridden in so fine a carriage, the ride as smooth as sitting in the drawing room. She could have served tea without spilling a drop.
     
    Radcliff told himself he could not sleep because he was protector to these young maidens. But had they been in the comfort of his ancestral home, sleep still would have eluded him. Nothing in his heretofore predictable existence had been the same since he had set eyes on the ravishing Bonny Barbara Allan. He—Richard Moncrief, the fifth Duke of Radcliff—had for the past dozen or more years been quite content with the carefree life of a bachelor. The sporting. The bedding of beauties. Running with other like-minded blades who happily performed any number of foolish deeds at his behest.
    Now, though, his hedonistic life seemed strangely empty. Memories of his parents and their devotion to each other and to him flooded his thoughts these past two days and left him bereft. Until Barbara, no other woman had ever evoked these emotions. What was there about her that made him forget her extraordinary beauty and long to hear the gentleness in her voice when she spoke of her mother or see the love in her eyes as she fretted over her frail cousin?
    Never would he have believed he would willingly give up his comforts to undertake a round-trip journey of more than a month along rugged roads just to be near a girl fresh from the schoolroom. He who had always loathed traveling, whether it be stifled in a crowded carriage or riding outside in the foul weather until his very bones throbbed in pain. Yet here he was in a traveling coach as content as a kitten basking in the sun.
    He gathered Barbara against him, a gentle smile settling on his face. That he had determined the first night he met her that Bonny Barbara would be his bride seemed not at all foolish. His attraction to her lay not only in her beauty but also in her refreshing honesty, her humility, her exposure to the classics.
    She possessed all he could ever want in a bride. And he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything in his privileged life.
    This time, he feared, his good fortune would fail him.
     
    Once they were out of London, the coach proceeded at a monotonous pace, which, along with the steady clopping of horse hooves, lulled Bonny to sleep.
    The carriage was still quite dark when she woke to find the duke’s arm hooked around her, pulling her rather into his barreled chest. And to her utter embarrassment, her right hand reposed on his muscled thigh. She listened to the steady thumping of his heart beneath her ear, and she could never remember knowing such utter contentment. She pretended to sleep still, enjoying the feel of being so close to him, but she slowly put her hand back in her own lap.
    As daylight began to filter into the carriage, she sat up quite straight, not wanting Emily and Martha to see her in so familiar a position with the duke.
    The duke politely removed his arm from around her and sat erect, also. She turned toward him. He looked very tired. “I’m very much afraid my own comfort has been at your expense,” she whispered.
    The corners of his stern mouth lifted ever so slightly to reveal a dimple in his tanned cheek. “Actually, Miss Allan, I don’t know when I’ve ever been more comfortable.”
    As the days of the journey stretched onward, they fell into a regular pattern. The duke rode a horse most of the day, leaving the women to the coach. Each evening they would stop at an inn, where he arranged for them to eat in a private dining parlor and where