All About the Duke (The Dukes' Club Book 4) (17 page)

“We will find her,” he declared simply.

She nodded, desperate to convince herself. “We must.”

“The moment we leave here, I will set my men to locating her.”

She drew in a relieved breath. If anyone could find Rose, somehow she knew it would be the man holding her in his capable arms.

He lifted one of those strong hands to her chin and tilted her head back. “I’m so sorry, my darling, but do you think you can overcome your vow and marry me. It is the only way to protect you from your father’s authority at present. A duchess’ cage is much nicer than the one your father was preparing for you.” 

Good God. There it was. Nicholas was, of course, right. And she’d have to marry him. She wasn’t yet to her majority and so her father could do with her whatever he wished. . .That was, unless she had a husband.

She wouldn’t be locked away. She wouldn’t.

“Yes Nicholas,” she replied. “I’ll marry you.”

In the shadows, she could barely make out his strong jaw and beautiful face, but she knew his eyes were searching over her own visage.

“No one will ever do anything like this to you again, Allegra,” he said in the darkness. “No one.”

His words were filled with passion and her whole body seemed to shiver at his vow. Only. . . Could she believe him? Worse, did she want to leave such an undertaking to anyone’s power but her own?

Still, she was no fool. If anything, her adventures had proven to her just how much this was a man’s world and how little true power she had in it.

It made her heart ache that she was naught more than a tennis ball hammered back and forth across a court by the will of men. One moment, she was in her father’s power, the next she was being rescued by Nicholas.

Oh, Nicholas couldn’t be compared to other men. He was good and strong and would never intentionally hurt her. . . Yet, she needed to find a way to have strength and power on her own.

This wasn’t the moment for it.

The fear of the last two days made her long to be comforted by someone who cared for her. Never in her life had she felt so alone. Even now, here, with her savior, she felt alone.

It was, she realized sadly, the plight of being a woman. She had no idea how to change that cold feeling. Especially when Nicholas was so warm. For one brief moment, she wished she were a fool. For if she could have just been a fool or even any average lady, it never would have occurred to her to wish for some power of her own. A life of her own. She would have been overjoyed to have her knight in silver armor charging in to save her whenever she needed.

But she was not a foolish woman and more than anything, even in Nicholas’ arms, she wished that she had somehow been able to save herself. At this precise moment, she felt like a failure. A failure to herself and a failure to Juliana.

“Let us go,” she said.

Wordlessly, he took her hand in his and opened the door.

Under the stunned eyes of her father, her mother, and the servants, she and Nicholas strode down the hall and out into the night.

And there was no escaping it.

She was going from one man’s keeping into another’s. Something that would have given so many girls the greatest joy filled her heart with self-disappointment.

There seemed to be little question. She was going to be his wife. So, how would she ever be Nicholas’ equal now?

L
arge houses couldn’t cause Allegra to gape. She’d seen her share. The Duke of Roth’s London home was no exception in its hugeness. Towering above the street, with a small park of its own, the thing fairly glittered like an aspiring palace, even in the dead of night.

The servants, as good servants were, had been absolutely stoic in the face of His Grace returning home with a scraggly looking female in tow. Her gown was one of her least elaborate. Just a simple linen affair and her hair was short and wild about her face. She’d known it. After all, captivity and the threat of a madhouse did little for one’s grooming.

In the foyer that was as large as the first floor of her father’s entire London residence, Nicholas had lingered, whispering to his butler. The butler, a man with remarkably bushy, silver brows and furrowed forehead nodded firmly, turned and whisked quickly to some hidden passage.

Still, even as Nicholas had taken her upstairs, she hadn’t been particularly impressed. Dukes were special creatures and the world treated them accordingly and bestowed upon them houses and wealth.

However, three hours later she was stunned. Stunned to such a degree that she hadn’t refused the third glass of wine that the Duke of Aston had poured into her beautifully cut crystal glass.

She was married.

Married.

Wed.

Linked in a conjugal bond for eternity.

Well the conjugal bit really wouldn’t be so bad. Nicholas was a remarkable lover.

Still, as she swallowed the bubbling liquid, she stared at the two dukes who had overseen her wedding like it had been a firing squad before the sleepy-eyed Bishop of London.

They were grinning at each other.

“She’s a charmer. Indeed, she is!” Aston quipped.

“
She
is right here,” Allegra said before taking a good swig.

“Do beg your pardon.” Aston gave her a ridiculously elaborate bow. “But you see, this fellow here was lolling about on a polished wood floor this morning, pining over you. And now look at him? Grinning ear to ear.”

“Pining?” She had trouble imagine Nicholas doing anything so plebeian as pining.

“I was terribly worse for wear if you must know,” Nicholas admitted.

“He’d had quite an adventure with a few friends the night before.”

“Oh, indeed?” She felt her grip tighten on her glass. She knew Nicholas had quite a full life before they’d met. A life full of all sorts. “Friends?”

What kind of friends? She wanted to demand that information in a completely out of countenance fashion. She just managed to stop herself before she sounded preposterously married and fishing wifely at the same time. And in less than an hour since the official
I dos
.

Aston pounded Nicholas on the back. “Look at that marvelous jealousy. And you were worried she didn’t care.”

“I’m not jealous!”

“If you’re not, you should move away from the fire,” Aston replied, “Your cheeks have turned a delicious shade of indignant pink.”

“Please refrain from commenting on the color of my duchess’ cheeks.”

My duchess
! How strange those words sounded to her ears.

"Well, your duchess is clearly in denial about her green-eyed monster.” Aston nodded, as if confirming his own diagnosis. “Did you see her eyes bulge when I declared you out with friends?"

To Allegra's horror, Nicholas smiled. As though he was pleased.

Arrogant, silly man.

"Dukes," Nicholas said, his eyes full of some emotion that she couldn't quite name. "All dukes. We over imbibed in our personal club."

To her horror, she felt a wave of relief. Really, she had no claim on Nicholas and she wasn't naive enough to believe that husbands were faithful to their wives. Even lovers often weren't faithful to each other. Or at least so she'd gathered when listening to a few conversations between her mother and her friends. Even so, this forbidden knowledge hadn't stopped the deeply unpleasant feeling that had passed over her when she'd suddenly contemplated Nicholas in the perfumed arms of another woman.

Aston raised his champagne flute. "Now, that's not entirely true, old man, is it?"

"Aston," Nicholas growled.

“What?” Aston asked innocently. “Is Lady Imogen not a woman?"

Allegra glanced back and forth between the two men wondering if she'd descended into some sort of conversation she couldn't really understand because Aston seemed unusually jolly considering the trouble he was making for his friend. Nicholas looked like he was about to pop Aston in the jaw.

"Lady Imogen?" she queried, forcing herself to have an air of lightness.

"Well, yes," Nicholas began. "She's an old friend and I ran into her at a ball last night, but she's spoken for. And she and I never ever—”

"The lady doth protest too much,” cut in Aston.

"Stop that!" Nicholas roared.

Aston ignored Nicholas and, instead, asked out of the seeming air, ”Do you think the Scot did it?”

Allegra began to feel like an observer at a polo match, her eyes going back and forth as the opponents cracked the ball about the field.

"Scot?" she echoed.

"Oh, yes," Aston supplied merrily. "You see, Roth ain't joking. Deuced woman has gone and fallen for a right prickly Scottish duke. Nice enough chap, but he will wax on and on about duty and all that." Aston suddenly beamed. "I say, Roth. Do you think he did it?"

"Did what?” Roth asked.

Aston sighed with exaggerated impatience. ”Kidnapped his lady love?"

Allegra's head began to ache.

"Kidnap?" asked Nicholas, his whole demeanor suddenly changing to one of concern.

Aston snorted. "You encouraged the fellow. You and all the other dukes. Didn't you."

"I don’t remember."

“Oh. That’s right.” Aston’s lips twitched. “I’d forgotten you'd tried to drink away your sorrows at being denied by the beautiful Lady Allegra."

"He did?" she asked, her voice high with shock to her own ears.

"Oh yes, dear duchess,” Aston declared. “Pints of gin were consumed. And they sent that poor Scottish fellow out into the night to kidnap his lady love since she was having nothing to do with him. If I know Imogen, and I do, the Duke of Blackburn will be singing a new tune this morning in a much higher and painful key. Still, I do believe you’ll be asked to a wedding very soon, Roth.”

Well, at least it was clear that Nicholas and this Imogen person had not been dallying whilst she'd been locked up. But kidnapping? These men had all thought it a good idea to kidnap Lady Imogen? What was wrong with gentlemen? Did they all see women as a side of beef hanging at the butcher’s ready to be plucked up?

Were all men monsters?

No. That couldn’t be. She knew Nicholas was a good man. It might then be safer to say that all men were fools. Did they not consider that Lady Imogen might not like being handled like a parcel? Or did they assume that she would be merely swept up in her lover’s grand and bizarre gesture.

Nicholas was studying her face as he said, “Aston, I think it was time you were going.”

“But there’s another bottle of champagne and I have no appointments—“

“Aston.”

“Oh, fine.” Aston winked at her. “I see how it is. You only wish me about when you need me.”

She couldn’t quite get a handle on the strange man. He was grand, tall, verbose, and vain as any peacock and yet, she had a feeling he had honor that would outdo most of the men of her acquaintance. And she liked him. For all his troublemaking ways.

She gave him a small curtsy. “Thank you for making my wedding possible.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “You’ve no idea, my dear. If it weren’t for me, your husband would still be moaning on the floor at his club.”

“Aston. . .”

“Honesty, old man,” Aston teased. “Honesty. It’s the best possible policy.”

And with that, he grabbed his hat from the table, placed it on his head at a jaunty angle, and whisked out of the room.

Allegra stared after him. “He is extremely odd.”

“He is, indeed.”

A smile tilted her lips. “I suppose that’s why I like him.”

“Our set is a bit odd but only North-northwest.”

She laughed at the play on Hamlet’s words. “Is that how you’d put it? A doctor actually said I was mad.”

Nicholas’ face softened and he put down his glass of champagne. “You aren’t mad, my darling. You never have been and you never will be. You are glorious in your uniqueness.”

“Uniqueness?” she queried. “You’re one of the few who seems to think that a positive thing.”

“You know so few people, duchess. So very few who might appreciate you. Now, that will all change.”

She tried to smile but she was afraid. Afraid that all her noble plans were going to disappear before her eyes like smoke that wafts up from the fire. “I want to believe you.”

He drew her hand into his, his strong fingers swallowing up her small ones. “You don’t have to believe my words. Give it time and you shall see. Tomorrow we shall begin.”

That gave her a start. “Whatever will the
ton
say?”

“Do you care?”

A laugh bubbled from her lips. “No. But I’d prefer people not to assume you married me to. . .”

“Because I ruined you?”

She nodded.

“I would wait to announce our marriage if I could, but I don’t see how.”

She racked her brain. “What if we told people we’d married when I was in Italy?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Well,” she began hoping she could make her idea stick, “you were traveling and I was supposedly abroad.”

“If we met and married, where are the witnesses?” he said quietly.

“Oh, bother.”

“I think we will just have to come out strong and ignore the gossips.”

Ignoring the gossips sounded next to impossible. But he was right in the end. There was no way to paint this in any other light.

“I don’t suppose I could just hide on your estate, could I?”

Nicholas smiled slowly. “You don’t have to hide anymore, Allegra. You’re the Duchess of Roth. People ought to hide from
your
wrath, if they arouse it.”

The Duchess of Roth. That’s who she was. Not some young girl on the marriage mart.

She’d never been in any sort of position of power before and she did understand that as a duchess she could quite possibly be one of the most powerful ladies in London.

Nicholas slipped the glass of champagne from her fingers and trailed his palm up her arm. “Now, we could present you to all the most proper people, do all those things. We could be terribly boring. . .”

She resisted a shiver at the delicious sensation his touch evoked. “Or?”

“I can introduce you to my friend, Lady Imogen. I can introduce you to my friends and their rather revolutionary wives.”