Victoria tripped over a hidden root and she felt his hand tighten on her arm to steady her. The warm heat of him rushed through her like sunshine on a summer's day and she swatted him away with frantic hands. She was not a simpering debutante to have her head turned with talk of summertime. "Courting me?!"

"Yes," the duke answered simply.

"Listen," Victoria implored stepping closer, "If I mistakenly gave you any reason to suppose that I was looking for a... consort then I am sorry. Last night was-."

"Eye opening," Lord Westley interjected.

"Perhaps for you!" Victoria scowled and stamped off in the opposite direction trying to ignore the raucous beating of her untrained heart. What on God's green earth was happening? The Duke of Westley was scant feet away and the ton weren't much farther. Was she to be humiliated in front of their gazes once again? Her throat turned dry at the thought. The duke was far more trouble than he was worth and it was better that she rid herself of him as soon as humanly possible.

"I doubt you will be able to conduct your botany lesson with me trailing behind." Anthony easily resumed his place beside her, his long legs eating up the distance with casual grace. "Come, Miss Hastings, pray tell is that creeping plant a stonewort or a lilywort?"

"Oh, as if you care?" Victoria swung around not bothering to glance in the direction of a phantom flower.

The duke paused at the vitriol in her voice and leaned idly against the nearest tree trunk. "I must say, Miss Hastings, you are a great deal more hostile than last night."

Victoria lingered at a sufficient distance to make their conversation appear benign to their rapt audience. "Last night was an aberration. It will never be repeated, do you hear me?" she hissed rather more loudly than she had intended.

"I can hear you Diamond, but I don't have to necessarily agree, and shouting your opposition is unlikely to persuade me or them." He gestured his head toward the milling members of society.

"But WHY?!" Victoria couldn't keep the desperate fear from her screech.

Anthony shrugged. "Why not?"

Victoria's shoulders slumped. His answer did nothing to ease her worries. The last man who thought it was amusing to bide his time with her got off scot free and she was left with no reputation, no friends and no prospects.

"I am not suggesting we do anything nefarious... well, not unless you want to." The duke smiled and eased himself off the trunk, dusting his coat as he approached her. "You know I have always found you rather intriguing, no time more so than in Lord Summerton's study, last night." He offered her his arm once more and she could not refuse when it felt like hundreds of eyes were eagerly watching for any shred of gossip.

"After all, it would be a pity not to repeat our part in the performance." A grin threatened his nonchalant expression and he found that he didn't mind so much. It had been a long time since he had any real cause to smile.

Victoria looked up at him sharply. "How can you talk of such things so calmly? I don't make a habit of being accosted at parties, despite what the crowds may say. That was my first real kiss," she whispered scandalised that she was having such a conversation in Hyde Park.

"Ah, and what a kiss it was." He dipped his lips to her ear close enough for her to feel the moisture of his breath against her flushed skin.

"Anthony!" she remarked and jerked her neck away.

He merely smiled widely. It was a devilish grin that said come into my lair, I promise not to bite.

She was not fooled.

"I like it when you use my Christian name," he commented, quietly enjoying how flustered she became at his words.

"It was a lapse, Lord Westley. It will also not happen again." She clucked her tongue in annoyance as they continued the farce of strolling through the grove.

"And again another pity. Let me ask you this Miss Hastings, I am a man with certain means, who is not intolerably ugly or so I am told, and we have a certain rapport, so why refuse my simple request to court you?"

Victoria stopped suddenly and looked upon him as if he were mad. "Because you don't mean it."

"I am quite sure that I do." His words held the facetious lilt of a laugh.

"Don't patronise me, Your Grace," she snapped. "I am a spinster."

"I believe I am attempting to rectify that matter." The duke cocked a brow with an accompanying smirk.

"You know what I mean, I am unmarried," Victoria emphasised the last word like it sullied her to speak its consonants.

"So is every woman until she weds," the duke sobered to answer her solemnly.

"No," Victoria corrected. "Single woman of a certain, respectable age are debutants. I am not available for marriage firstly due to my age and most importantly due to my reputation. You know that I bring with me all the scandal of the past."

"So?" Anthony prompted.

"Or maybe, that is why you sought me out," she gasped as the idea dawned on her. "You think I am sullied goods, and so you think you can dally with me like the rest of your... whores."

Anthony drew his brows together. "Do not debase yourself with such language. It is not like you," he ground out. "I have not asked for anything that you have not freely given, and I have already told you that I know Andrew was a lying imbecile. I cannot understand why the ton has not moved passed that yet, or why we cannot simply enjoy each other's company." The Duke of Westley shrugged dismissively.

Victoria couldn't believe it. He shrugged. Years of torment and torture for her and what was his response? He shrugged! "Urgh," she groaned. "I don't expect you to understand, but hopefully you can comprehend that you are a notorious rake. In the brief moments that you spend in London you have your own reputation of dissipation and disrepute, which is apparently fine since you are a man."

"So glad you noticed," the duke whispered, rough with insinuation.

"Yes, well that is all well and good for you, Your Grace." Victoria emphasised his title. "But for us humble women with no money and no marriage that is never acceptable. If you should be seen with me people will assume I am your doxy or something of that persuasion. I have already been through enough, I have only just managed to blend comfortably into the background of society and I don't much fancy taking a step forward."

It was Anthony's turn to stop abruptly. He looked upon Victoria and didn't see the sullen spinster she pretended to be. The light from between the trees above filtered down through the foliage and fell softly across the alabaster slope of her face. Her lips were rosy and he knew them to be as soft as they appeared, but unlike the night before they were curved unhappily downward. He could not understand the ire in her sparkling blue eyes. She was grace and beauty and above it all she was funny and kind. She was all the things that most of the ton never were or never could be and yet she longed to be accepted.

He reached toward her and entwined a wayward lock of golden hair around his finger. "Why are you trying to fit in, when you were born to stand out?"

Victoria's breathing halted for a moment. The duke had angled his body to afford them a moment of privacy in the shadowed grove. Her skin tingled and seemed chilled and alight all at the same time. She tried to make her lungs work, tried to breathe but all she could manage was to inhale his musky, woody scent with a hint of spice. A reminder of his time abroad, a scent memory of the explorer beneath his skin. Ever since he began to travel to the Orient she would recognise him by his intoxicating cologne. Victoria always knew the minute he entered a ballroom or could track him across the gardens with ease. She had often thought that time and longing had made her a bloodhound to his sensual aroma, but no woman willingly wanted to compare herself to a canine.

She looked up from under her wretched bonnet and gazed at him. He stood in a shaft of streaming sunlight that highlighted the deep browns of his otherwise ebony hair and his golden eyes flickered with something deeper than mischief and yet lovelier than lust. She had dreamt of such a moment more times than she had dared count but time was cruel. Three years earlier and she would have eagerly fallen into his arms, but now she was wiser. The Duke of Westley could dress it up as much as he liked but men such as him were not built for marriage. Any small kindness from him would end in tears for her.

Victoria took a giant step back and sighed at the sudden chill upon her skin. "That is very kind of you to say, Your Grace."

"It is true," the duke replied darkly.

"Perhaps once. But now you are better off seeking out a young debutante to court. You will find that they are far more pliable than I."

"What if I don't want pliable?" Anthony growled as he stalked towards her.

"Well, I hardly see why you wouldn't?" Victoria scratched at her bonnet and tried to make it look like she was merely considering his words.

"Anyway, you seemed remarkably pliant last night. So much so that I look forward to such accommodating behaviour again." The duke's eyes simmered with unfurling heat but he made no move to touch her.

"You talk a great deal, Your Grace but I'm beginning to believe that you would not dare try any such thing in the light of day." Victoria puffed out her chest with the surety of a woman with an audience of elite staring at her from across Rotten Row, and just because she could not help it, she gave her bonnet another tug.

"Oh, for God's sake," the duke swore under his breath and walked toward her with unflinching pressure. He stalked her like prey and she shuffled unconsciously backwards with his every step until there was nowhere left to go.

"Ouch!" Victoria yelped as she fell directly into the bush behind her.

The Duke of Westley instantly seized her, his arms encasing her as he pulled her into his body. His teeth scraped against the slope of her ear, marking the tender flesh before he spoke. "You will find that I dare a great many things," the duke warned with the rough edge of passion. His voice layered between promise and threat.

Anthony dipped his head into the curve of her neck and pressed a heated kiss to her skin, delighting in the gasp that escaped her throat. He braced the pressure of the briar bush and swiftly pulled Victoria free of the brambles. He used quick hands to surreptitiously tear the bonnet off her head and simultaneously dust the foliage from her back and shoulders as if nothing was amiss.

And yet there was plenty amiss in their quiet corner of Hyde Park. Victoria's head swam with the rush of excitement in her blood. The Duke's body had been on top of hers on a sunny day in a London park and she was painfully aware that her own had been pressed between sharp bites of thorns against her back and firm masculine heat at her front. He was pleasure mixed with pain and the feeling was as intoxicating as his cologne. She hastily righted herself and glanced beyond his shoulder to see her Aunt Beatrice making a show of racing towards them but seemed to be moving uncommonly slowly for a woman who was reportedly in fine health.

Victoria shook the heated haze from her mind. She groped for her fan that hung limply from her wrist and flicked it open to furiously cool her flushed skin. The slim panels of lace flew in front of her face and she became acutely conscious of long strands of her cornflower hair flowing freely about her.

Victoria gasped and reached for a bonnet that was no longer there when she heard a quiet snicker. The Duke of Westley stood facing her with a self-satisfied smirk on his perfectly formed face.

"You took it!" she accused affronted.

"Yes." He assented with a single nod.

"You planned this," she flung her arms widely at the bush.

"I should hope that you recall falling of your own accord... but in the interest of full disclosure, I did see it coming. Consider it a kindness that you no longer have to wear this atrocity." He held up the tattered shreds of her lace cap.

"My bonnet!" she exclaimed.

"Don't sound so forlorn." He commented calmly as he pocketed the scrap of material.

"Give me that back." Victoria ordered through gritted teeth.

"This?" the duke gestured to his pocket. "Why? You clearly hate it."

"That may be the case," she conceded, "but I am still required to wear it. I dare not be seen in public without it."

The duke's eyes flashed like the devil on a good day. "I thought I told you that I dare a great many things, and so, I think, would you with the correct inducement."

"Is that what this is to you? A test to see what I would be willing to do? A game?" Victoria recoiled affronted. Apart from being a consummate rake, the Duke of Westley was famed for being a notoriously dangerous business man. He gambled mercilessly with ships full of cargo and the prospects of national speculations rose and fell with the mere nod of his head.

"No," he answered honestly. "I never wager on women. They are too unpredictable and if I play, I play to win. But..." Anthony cocked his head and his voice trailed off in thought. "Perhaps I can make an exception for you. Let me make you an offer. If I can bring out the passionate hellion that I know resides under that prim bonnet this season, then you will consent to grant me a wish of my choosing."

"An unrestricted wish!" Victoria twisted her lips wryly. "I don't think so. You could make me do anything you desire." The insinuation was clear in her voice.

"Think what you will, but I will not force you to do anything too nefarious." The duke bowed his head.

Victoria continued to look dubious.

"I promise not to deflower you... unless of course you ask nicely first," he added with a wink.

Victoria scowled at him in return. "And what do I get if I win?"

"I will leave for the Orient, tail firmly between my legs and you will once again be the toast of the ton, Diamond. You know I have the connections and know-how to make it happen. But I dearly hope that you learn that you can be far happier without them." He lifted her hand and placed a gentlemanly kiss over her knuckles.

Victoria refused to be cowed by a skilful touch accompanied by artful words. "And how do you propose to accomplish such a feat?"

"Leave the details to me. I can assure you that I will not fail my end of the bargain." His eyes darkened as he stepped into her space. "Shall we seal the deal with a more appropriate kiss?"

"You are asking me to traipse around London with you, sharing in your life of excess and debauchery and all I have to do at the end is confess that I hate it in order to win back my place in society? And you promise that the ton will not be privy to these tests?"

"Yes," he nodded once and took a final step to cloister the air around her with his enthralling perfume.

Apart from the prior night, Victoria had never dared anything in her life and enjoyed it, and she didn't plan to start now. Books, ballrooms and biddable rules of society was how she lived her safe little life and she liked it. "Then, I agree. But be prepared to lose, Your Grace." Victoria tilted her chin up defiantly.

"As I said before, I never lose," the duke growled warningly. "Now, let us seal the deal." He reached for her but was forced to pause when he heard the loud exclamations of Victoria's Aunt approaching.

"Oh my! My dear, what a fall. I am coming." Aunt Beatrice commented well before she had truly arrived upon them.

"We are here, Aunt." Victoria shouted back even though her relative could clearly see where she was located.

"Another time then," the Duke of Westley whispered softly and stepped back with honeysuckle eyes full of promise.

Victoria's pulse quickened and doubt flickered through her mind before she could catch it. She would not question her own constitution. The Duke of Westley would never be able to claim his mysterious favour because she would not lose their bet. He was a rake, bored with his piles of money or constant travels and was merely looking for opportunities to seduce and ruin her under the guise of courtship. But she would play his game, and she would win. 

~

Did you like it? VOTE!

A/N: I hope you liked the little update to the story of Victoria Hastings and the Duke of Westley. I was taking a break from Persuasion in the Pantry and just checked in to see what was happening in the Hyde Park. 

What do you think is going to happen, and more importantly what do you want to happen??? Any ideas for these lessons in debauchery?

xx Inara