Free Disciplining the Duchess by Annabel Joseph

take her. Take her to the wall, take her on a journey, unchaperoned, that would require a stay overnight at an inn. Perhaps she did not realize the repercussions of such, with her single-minded unconventionality, but he did. He would be saddled with her then, this hopeless, passionate creature.
    Damn him. Damn him a hundred thousand times.
    “Miss Barrett.” He sighed momentously. “I must insist you get into the carriage.” She spun to face him. Before she could refuse, he held up a quelling hand. “I will take you to view your pile of Roman rocks, although I believe we will both come to regret it.”
    She stared at him as the coachman inched up the road, following them. The entire tableau was comical, as ridiculous as the woman standing in her bedraggled dress before him. All of it, farcical. He swung an arm in the direction of the coach. “Get in.”
    “Do you promise, Your Grace? You will not have your man start back to Danbury House the moment I embark?”
    The prospect was tempting. He took a deep breath and let it out, praying for sanity.
    “I swear on the graves of every Courtland duke before me.” He turned to the coachman, who was doing an excellent job of keeping a straight face. “Will you kindly convey us to the Roman wall at Newcastle and back to Sedgefield on the morrow? You will be well paid for your time and trouble.”
    The man touched his cap and nodded. Court turned back to Miss Barrett with a scowl. “I will give you exactly one minute’s time to board the carriage before I lose my temper and do something we shall both regret.”
    For a moment, she looked like she might reply, but then she wisely bit her tongue and let Court assist her up the steps and into the traveling coach.

Chapter Five: Cage
     
    Court settled heavily into the seat opposite her, then the coach started forward with a lurch and a squeak. Harmony waited for it to turn and change direction, but the duke kept his word and they continued toward the wall.
    She knew he was angry. Furious. Perhaps he thought she would make marital demands on him as a result of this mad dash. She could, easily, but she wanted nothing less on earth. All she wanted was to get to the wall. She would not even broach the subject of compromising situations and propriety, because she didn’t care about that at all. If only her original plan had worked, if only that cursed farmer hadn’t stranded her in the middle of nowhere. If only the duke hadn’t come across her in Sedgefield...
    How awful that he was involved. I will give you exactly one minute’s time to board the carriage before I lose my temper and do something we shall both regret. She supposed he was speaking of the spanking he’d alluded to earlier, the sound spanking she “so richly needed and deserved.” It was impossible to imagine the duke turning her over his knee to punish her, but what if he did? It would hurt, she knew that. She stared at his large hands resting on his thighs and, to her horror, felt some small pang of excitement.
    For shame, Harmony. What is wrong with you? She couldn’t think about such things now, not with him sitting across from her glowering in such a grim way.
    She had been prepared to walk to the wall, only to prove that for once she could do as she wished. For once, her desires and dreams would not be denied her. That line of thought only brought more tears and the beginnings of a headache. She pressed His Grace’s handkerchief to her eyes, taking deep breaths of its folds. The linen held his rich, heady scent of musk or cologne and now she smelled of it too. When she finally calmed, she offered it back to him.
    “Put it in your reticule, madam,” he said tautly. “I do not doubt you will need it again.”
    Yes, he was furious. Perhaps she ought to just tell him she’d harbor no expectations of him, but she had no idea how to say it without embarrassing herself. She shrank as small as she could to give his legs more room. It was not a large coach but