The Inconvenient Duchess

would leave the berries with the cook, sneak up the back stairs, and swear Polly to secrecy. By lunch she could claim that she had spent the morning taking a nap, and he would be none the wiser.
    ‘What are you doing?’ She almost dropped the basket of fruit she was carrying.
    Her husband stood in front of her, blocking the way.
    ‘Nothing. Really.’ She made to step around him.
    He countered her movement to block her again, glanced down into the basket and plucked a berry from the top of the pile. ‘Nothing? It looks to me as though you’ve been working in the garden.’
    ‘H-hardly working. There were some berries left on the bush. And it seemed a shame to leave them for the birds, if there were enough to make preserves or a pudding of some kind.’
    ‘And you took it upon yourself to go picking?’
    ‘It was no trouble.’
    ‘Couldn’t send a footman for them? Or tell cook that you wanted them picked?’
    She raised her chin in defiance. ‘It so happens that I like berries.’
    He snatched another out of the basket. ‘As do I. Tell me, Miranda, how do these berries taste?’
    ‘Taste? Like berries, of course.’
    ‘But are they sweeter than usual? Tart? A bit past their prime? It is late in the season, you know.’
    ‘I…I haven’t taken the time to try one,’ she admitted.
    ‘You pick them because you like them. And yet, when you were surrounded by them, you didn’t think to pop one in your mouth?’
    Her minded clouded with the memories. She’d learned, when young, that you did not eat as you picked from the wild patch near the cottage. It meant that you ate well and had a belly ache for your pains, but that the rest of the family went hungry because of your greed. It was better to wait until you got home and were sure that the bounty could be shared.
    And picking at the great house? You did not eat if the berries did not belong to you. Her mind flashed back to another corridor, and a smiling man standing too close to her.
    Of course, great men in great houses had no problems taking things that did not belong to them.
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘I did not.’ And she stared into her husband’s eyes.
    He sighed. ‘What shall I do with you?’ He put a hand on her shoulder and backed her against the wall.
    She felt the cold of the stone at her back, and she remembered the vile whisperings and the taste of strawberries. And her expression changed to one of alarm.
    ‘Close your eyes, Miranda. No, dear. I didn’t say, “Stare at me as if I am about to eat you.” I said, “Close your eyes.”’
    She closed them tight, and tensed, waiting for the hand on her body.
    Instead she felt the lightest touch of a finger, tracing the straight line of her closed lips.
    ‘Open.’
    She felt his finger smooth over her mouth again, as the rest of the hand settled under her chin, and stroked. She unclenched her jaw with effort, and his fingertip dipped into her mouth, touching her lightly on the tongue.
    ‘Taste.’
    There was the barest hint of raspberry juice, on the tip of her tongue, sweet and wonderful. Without thinking, she licked at his finger as it slipped away.
    ‘Again.’ And he slipped a berry between her lips and let his fingers linger as she nibbled the fruit from them. When he spoke again, his voice was close to her ear, whispering, ‘This is what you’re missing, Miranda. Pleasures all around you, for the taking. Sweet as the berries. And all I can get you to do is work.’
    He brought another fruit to her lips and she reached out and steadied his hand with her own as she ate, and heard his little intake of breath as her teeth grazed his fingers.
    And suddenly he pulled her close with his other arm and she felt the basket slip between them as she lost her grip. She opened her eyes to see berries cascading down his linen shirt and smashing between the basket and his cravat.
    And she felt her resolve slipping as the old desires swirled in her and she pushed him away, scooping the berries back into the basket. ‘Lord, what a mess. Quickly, Marcus. Go upstairs and give that shirt to your valet before the juice ruins it.’
    His eyes were darker than usual, and there was a moment that hung between them, where she was sure he was about to yell at her again, for being such a goose. And then he laughed. It was a sound that she couldn’t remember ever hearing from him. And he took his juice-stained hands and brought them up to cup her face, pulling it close and kissingit, fast and firm. And