A Duke's Temptation (6 page)

Lily’s grin suggested that the scandal had not been a fabrication. “I refuse to deny or confirm any gossip about my relatives.”

“Good for you. I admire a lady who isn’t influenced by low talk. And I admire . . .” His gaze traveled over her, his meaning explicit.

Her mouth tightened in reprimand.

“. . . your costume,” he said, guiding her around the fountain to a flagstone path. “It’s very original. I don’t believe I’ve seen another Goose-Girl at a masquerade before. I realized who you were the instant I looked at you.”

“You were looking at me rather a lot.”

He looked at her now with unabashed candor. “You didn’t mind, did you?”

“Shame on you,” she said mildly, pulling her hand from his. “Are you sure you know where we’re going?”

“Not really. But there are footmen standing guard in case we get lost. Be careful here where you step—the stone is slippery. You looked at me a lot, too. And I didn’t mind at all. Do you enjoy reading fairy tales?”

She glanced back at the brightly lit house. He wondered for a moment if she would run away. But then she turned back and said, “Yes. I especially love the Brothers Grimm.”

“You read German?” he asked her in surprise.

“My great-aunt does.” She gave him a guarded smile. One of her pale feathers fluttered to the ground. “I think,” she said, staring down with a frown, “that their stories are sheer genius.”

Competition. He released a disgruntled sigh. It followed him everywhere. He led her a few steps deeper into the garden before he replied, “I’ll admit the two of them have a certain flair for the fable, but then, how many of their stories were taken from other unsung authors through the ages?”

She broke into laughter. It was an infectious if unexpected reaction, and he found himself grinning at her. “What is so amusing?” he asked as they slowed at the entrance to a parterre.

“You are,” she said. “You may never have met another Goose-Girl, but I’ve never met a gentleman who confessed he reads fairy tales, let alone has given their origins serious thought.”

“This is a literary masquerade.”

“But not all the guests are literate.” She looked a little guilty. “I shouldn’t have said that. It sounds mean.”

His chest felt suddenly constricted. Either he needed to undo his breastplate, or Lily’s sultry laughter had stolen his breath.

“I’d no idea the Grimm brothers were literary thieves,” she said wistfully.

Now
he
felt guilty, not only for disillusioning her, but for maligning the young writers whose work he envied. “I didn’t mean they stole ideas. I think the brothers are brilliant.”

“ ‘The Pink’ is the best.”

“Some ladies do not approve of fairy tales at all. The violence offends them. But I thought that your favorite author was this mysterious fellow Lord Anonymous.”

Another of her feathers drifted from her dress onto his padded sleeve as she smoothed the seams of her off-white gloves. She moistened her lower lip. Samuel watched her in absorption. A suit of genuine armor and a shield would not be enough to protect either of them from the instincts that Lily had incited. She had to know she was desirable. He plucked the loose feather from his sleeve, capturing it between his fingers.

“I was hoping that Lord Anonymous would make an appearance,” she admitted, edging around him to stare into the garden. “Do you think that there’s any chance?”

He grimaced. “Positively not.”

She swung around, her eyes wide with astonishment. “Don’t tell me the two of you are personally acquainted.”

“All right. I won’t.”

She took a breath that lifted her lush décolletage. For a moment Samuel could not have repeated his own name, let alone the pseudonym that always made him cringe when he heard it. His ducal title did not appear to impress her. His secret identity as Lord Anonymous did. Was he reckless enough to betray himself for a wicked kiss in the dark?

He feared he might be.

He bent his head. “You are the loveliest woman I have met in . . . in forever.”

“How nice of you to say.” She paused. “Tell me what you know about Anonymous.”

Samuel blinked. “I meant what I just said.”

“Yes,” she murmured. She gave him a measuring look. He wasn’t sure whether to be amused or offended. Judging by how quickly she had dismissed his compliment, she was either accustomed to flattery, or she thought he was a complete scoundrel who could not be trusted.

She tilted her face up to his. “I would be ever so grateful if you whispered his real name. I promise I’ll keep it a secret. On my honor as a Boscastle. I’ll carry your confidence to the grave. Please, Your Grace. Please.”

If ever Samuel had been tempted to confess that he and Anonymous were one and the same, this was the time. Or at least, she was the temptress. “I wish I could,” he said in genuine regret. “Assuming I knew—and I’m not admitting I do—I would not be at liberty to say.”

She stepped a little closer to him. “You don’t know anything, do you? He has never been caught out in public.”

He examined the brown-speckled feather she had shed on his sleeve. “This belonged to a hawk.”

“Possibly. It wasn’t easy finding enough pure white feathers to cover a costume, so a few other birds sneaked in.”

“A hawk is a bird of prey,” he said reflectively. “This changes my perception of you.”

“I think you know more than you are telling me about the author of
Wickbury
.”

“Tell me your theory about him.”

“You give me your word you won’t laugh?” she asked with a wicked smile that made him want to kiss her.

“My word.”

“But I’m not sure I can trust you.”

“Why not?” he said in surprise. “I’ve been on my best behavior.”

“Maybe it’s because you have a dangerous air that’s supposed to warn young ladies like me to be on guard.”

“You have a wicked air yourself,” he countered.

“Well, I don’t consider myself dangerous.” She hesitated. “Do you?”

“Very much so.”

She stared up at him for a long time. He thought she liked the idea of being a femme fatale. But she must have been regarded as one before. “I’ll tell you my theory about Lord Anonymous, but only if you promise not to make fun of me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. And I have to say, Anonymous aside, you have a way of heightening a suspenseful moment yourself.”

She lowered her gaze.

“A genuine page-turner,” he added. “I am hanging on your every word.”

She looked up. “My theory is that the writer is a woman.”

“He’s a
what
?”

“A woman,” she said again, with a certainty that hinted she knew something about him that he didn’t.

Lord Anonymous had been accused of many things, primarily that he had corrupted the morals of his readers with his dark plot twists and protagonists that acted beyond the pale. And, like any other author, he often inserted part of himself into his characters without realizing it. “Why a woman?”

“I explained it before. It’s the passion.”

He had to reflect on this. He had to prove to her that he was, well, not a woman of his word.

“No one has ever suggested such an outlandish idea before. It’s preposterous. Talk about a fairy tale.”

She gasped. “You said you wouldn’t make fun of me. And you are wrong. There was a critic in the
Quarterly Review
who suggested that Anonymous might be a retired French courtesan.”

He cleared his throat. He had missed that review. It wasn’t one of the slanders he’d invented on his own. Or perhaps Philbert had kept it hidden from him. He refused to let Samuel read any critiques while he was in the early stages of a book. Samuel would have to investigate this slur at another time.

Two minutes later he and Lily stood before a Gothic-design black wrought-iron gate built into a brick archway. He took a golden key from his vest pocket and opened the padlock. The rush of a waterfall rang in the garden stillness. Lily gazed through the gate. Her enraptured smile made sneaking from the party worthwhile.

“Welcome to
Wickbury
.” He guided her through a woodbine-smothered archway. “I hope you won’t be disappointed.”

H
e led her deeper and deeper into a maze of clipped box hedges. The music of water pipes drifted across the topiary walk. Despite all the anticipation surrounding the event, she doubted anything could match the magic of
Wickbury
. Or the pleasure of a private tour given by the duke. Yes, she was skeptical of his motives.

To be fair, he might have instigated their flirtation, but she had flirted back, thinking she could tease him with impunity. He’d promised to behave, even if his eyes suggested something else entirely. Something elemental and enticing and dangerous all at once. And what should she make of his alleged knowledge of Lord Anonymous? Perhaps her theory had been right. It made more sense that he was intimate with a lady author than with a man. And the duke’s reaction had been rather strong, now that she pondered it.

Fortunately she would not taste any forbidden pleasures in this garden. Chloe would intervene at any moment, and Lily would soon be relating her brush with scandal to her friends back home. She might neglect to mention it to Jonathan, however. She was supposed to be acting like his betrothed, not like a lady encouraging a dalliance with a man of Gravenhurst’s notoriety.

And then suddenly she forgot she had agreed to be another gentleman’s bride. She almost forgot the man escorting her. She felt him step aside so that she could enter a landscape of a literary dream, illuminated by hundreds of lights hidden in the labyrinth.

The storybook characters loomed larger than life at the end of the maze. She gazed up at the foreleg of the stallion Bucephalus, whose hooves could inflict a lethal wound and who had carried a wounded Lord Wickbury on several misadventures to safety.

Then her attention shifted to the two adversaries who had stolen her heart from the moment the author invented them. Michael, Lord Wickbury, and his arch-enemy, Sir Renwick Hexworthy. Mesmerizing, each in a completely different way. A lady would always choose Wickbury over Sir Renwick if she were asked. But that was the rub. Sir Renwick didn’t ask. He stole whatever, whomever he wanted, and the only woman he wanted could not decide on either man.

Hero and villain waged battle across a chasm between two enormous yew hedges that had been trimmed to resemble boulders. Lord Wickbury sat astride his horse, his broadsword lifted as if to spear a star. From the evergreen dragon on the opposite side Sir Renwick Hexworthy raised his rapier-wand to intercept the call for divine intervention.

And Lily stood directly below the magnetic powers, vividly imagining how it would feel to have two magnificent characters fighting over her. A shiver rippled through her. For a moment she believed the fantasy. How foolish of her. Her emotions had not run this wild even when she had read the books.

“Look at him,” she murmured.

“Wickbury?”

She made a noncommittal noise, too embarrassed to look at the duke. She could picture his mocking half smile. “Whom do you prefer?” she asked, not expecting a sincere answer. Somehow she couldn’t imagine the duke losing himself in the darkly passionate tales. He appeared to be leading an enthralling life of his own.

“It depends,” he said.

“On what?”

“On my mood. Or the story’s flow.”

That didn’t make sense to her. But then, he had pleasantly muddled her thoughts from the start, and she still couldn’t decide whether he was only pretending to be as devoted to
Wickbury
as were she and a legion of other readers.

“I wonder who will win in the end,” she mused.

“Isn’t it supposed to be Wickbury? I mean, they are his tales.”

“For now, perhaps, but Sir Renwick happens to be Wickbury’s half brother, and even though it isn’t explained, he could be a Wickbury himself.”

He looked at her. His books had started out simply enough. Wickbury was heroic and handsome. His adversary was vile and had been disfigured during an alchemical experiment by an erupting brew.

“It’s happened in stories before,” she said. “And Lord Wickbury could have children who might end up being little monsters.”

“Don’t you
like
Lord Wickbury?”

“Of course I do. Everyone does. But I suppose that’s why I feel sympathy for Renwick.”

“
He
is a monster. Why pity him?”

“It would be horrible to grow up in Wickbury’s shadow.”

Samuel was fascinated with her insight. Perhaps he should have sought out an honest reader’s opinion all along. Perhaps her perception would enable him to finish the last chapter of Book Seven that was tormenting him. “I don’t know what you mean, exactly.” But he did, and he wanted to hear it explained in her appealing voice.

“Sir Renwick,” she said. “If only he had another chance . . .”

Samuel glanced off in contemplation.

He had debated the same issue at his desk too many times to argue with her. Did a man always choose to enact evil? Did the why of it even matter in the end if he destroyed others? Should he be offered compassion or simply be stopped?

Samuel concluded that he must have some inherent capacity for evil or he would not have been able to create the fiendish characters who challenged his protagonists.

“Everyone expects Wickbury to win,” she said. “Shouldn’t it be a little harder this time?”

She had a point.

But who could predict what the future held?

A surprise revelation about two sons of the same sire? The black sheep could become a savior.

The two men could encounter an enemy that would force a temporary truce for a book or two.

Would it not make for an interesting twist?

Samuel’s publisher would not think so.