JoAnn Wendt Read Online Free Page A

water’s edge where additional violinists sent lilting tunes out upon the night waters.
    The duke of Tewksbury had spared no expense to ensure that the first birthday of his heir, Robert Charles Neville Rochambeau would be the crowning event of London’s social season.
    Flavia’s silver kid slippers clicked nervously down the marble corridor of the east wing. Obedient to the duke’s wishes, she’d spent the day under the exhausting ministrations of dress-maker, hairdresser, perfumer, jeweler—every sort of sycophant. Their incessant chatter, their bickering, had driven all rational thought from her mind. But perhaps that was to the good, she reasoned wearily. Tonight she must not think too much. She mustn’t brood. For this eve of her son’s natal day awakened all the old fears. It awakened all the old yearnings too, she was forced to admit.
    It had been almost two years. Where was “he”? Was he alive and well? What might he be doing at this very moment?
    The yearning that had been her legacy since the night on the quay, welled up. Fed by the festive occasion, the yearning throbbed with fresh intensity.
    Oh, why couldn’t she forget the man!
    With a vividness that made her ashamed, she remembered his gentle touch, his masculine smell. When she closed her eyes at night to sleep, he was there; and though she might weep in helpless frustration, she couldn’t help remembering his thrilling kisses.
    Lost in memory, she shivered. The brisk click of her heels slowed. Her steps flagged. To remember such things was to open herself to jeopardy. To yearn for him was dangerous. What of her position? What of her parents? And Robert?
    She drew a scared, determined breath. Above all, she must protect the baby. No hint of scandal must touch him. She was well aware that at his birth London wags had amused themselves by joking about the duke’s late-found virility. People had dredged up tittle-tattle about the duke’s previous duchesses.
    Terrified that gossips might cast their malicious eyes upon her, she’d withdrawn like a turtle into its shell. Gradually, her warm, trusting nature had chilled to ice. In less than two years, the open-hearted girl had become the cool, unapproachable duchess of Tewksbury. If the metamorphosis had displeased her puzzled family and her friends, it had pleased the duke, Flavia mused unhappily. The duke disliked females who wore their feelings on their sleeves. The new, aloof Flavia was more to his taste. She realized he’d paid her the ultimate compliment when, during their dreary dinners in the immense dining hall, he’d begun to assault her with dry little histories of his jade collection.
    Secure in the knowledge that an heir slept in the nursery, he’d dispensed with visits to her bedchamber. In this Flavia had felt relief, for his cold, efficient performing of marital duty left her sobbing into her pillow for that which was lost to her... for that which must always be lost to her if she intended to protect her son and herself.
    Wearily, she sighed in resignation. If life was to be loveless, then so be it. There were other satisfactions. There was satisfaction in lavishing love upon her adorable son. There was satisfaction in seeing Papa prosperous and happy, in shepherding her younger sisters into good matches.
    But, for herself? The question hung in the air.
    She frowned in determination. Straightening the shoulders that felt so burdened, she said aloud, “I shall survive.”
    “M’lady?”
    A young footman with inquiring eyes bobbed out from his post in the corridor beside an enormous Flemish tapestry. Flavia stiffened, controlling the impulse to shriek in startled surprise. She’d not seen the lad, as his livery blended into a tapestry scene depicting the crusaders’ march to the Holy Land.
    He ducked his head in a nervous bow. “M'lady?”
    Flavia shook her head and granted him a chilly smile. It was a smile that served her well these days, keeping all persons—highborn or