Awakening His Duchess (27 page)

“I can be. I have been, but you said that I need not be when
we are alone.”

“I’ve changed my mind. Be dutiful. Leave me alone.” He
punched his pillow. Was he so afraid of her reaction that he meant to shut her
out first?

She stepped forward. “These scars are why you do not wish me
to touch you, no?”

“No,” he answered succinctly, which gave her no clarity at
all.

“Then why?”

“Just leave it alone,” he said, which wasn’t an answer at
all. “Why did you come in here anyway? You have your own room.”

His impatience and disgust were thick on the air. Clearly he
thought she was disturbing his rest. “
Pardon moi,
I thought you might
have need of my herbs.”

“Unless you have herbs that can erase my scars, I think
not.”

“You do not need to hide them from me. I—”

“Yvette,” he muttered in that same disgusted tone he’d been
using on her since they’d completed—she couldn’t even call it making love
because there hadn’t been any love to it.

“There are only two reasons for you to be in my room.” He
stepped menacingly closer, suddenly seeming large and dominant. “Treating my
illness or spreading your legs for me.”

Coldness filled her veins and she didn’t think all the fires
of hell could warm her. She stared at the harsh man who was her husband and she
didn’t know him. The whippings had not broken him, but they had eradicated
softness in him. Or at least any softness toward her.

What foolishness had made her think differently? The
marriage act? No, it had just been rutting like the basest of animals.

The Beau she had known and fallen in love with in
Saint-Domingue was gone and the sooner she accepted that all over again, the
better. It wasn’t fair, having to grieve over him twice. But this harsh man
likely only used kindness to get what he wanted from her, not because he had a
caring bone left in his body.

She was done with him and foolish hopes that there was
anything left of the Beau she knew. “I want doors.”

Perhaps he wouldn’t have heard her nightmare if closed doors
separated them, and she wouldn’t have misinterpreted his comforting her for
caring.

She marched back to her room and drew the draperies on her
bed. It wasn’t a door, but the message should be clear.

 
*~*~*

“Pay attention,” demanded the duke.

Not for the first time in the last hour, Beau shook the
cobwebs from his head and looked closer at the ledger. Who knew estate business
was so...tedious? Of course, if he could keep his thoughts from straying to
Yvette it would go much easier for him.

Last night had been both heaven and hell. And as much as he
hated the idea, he wanted her again. Wanted her as much or more than he’d
wanted her before their
wedding
night. But she’d had the audacity to
smile after seeing his scars. Only an evil woman could be amused by the marks
of his destruction. He hated that he wanted her.

“You never were a good student, were you?” said the duke on
a sigh of exasperation.

He’d been an indifferent student. “If something interested
me, I learned. I didn’t see much point in bothering when I’d get a degree by
virtue of being your son whether I did the work or not.”

But on the whole he preferred moving. Running, riding,
wrestling with his brothers were far more enticing activities than writing or
reading. He’d probably ultimately succeeded as a sugar worker because a part of
him enjoyed labor, but his father would never want to hear that.

“You don’t seem to have changed much.”

He bit back an angry retort and said instead, “I realize I
should have put more effort into my education.”

He needed to prove to his father he was not the drifting
ne’er-do-well he’d been when he left. He’d decided on the journey back across
the sea his best course in life was to move into politics to fight the
injustices in the world. But that was before he learned he was heir to the
dukedom, which would give him entrée to the upper chamber of Parliament—if he
outlived his father.

“Really. Because you aren’t watching what I’m doing.”

Beau fisted his hand below the desk’s surface then stretched
out his fingers. “The rents are here, the livestock here and...” He scanned
down the numbers, adding as he went. “The total amounts to 4,327 pounds, eleven
shillings, six pence, er, seven pence. The expenditures amounted to...”

The duke held up his hand as he added and then divided out
the pounds.

Scratching mathematical equations in the dirt had been good
for something. Actually he’d gotten good at arithmetic because if he made a
mistake he either confused the hell out of his pupils or they laughed at him.
Neither option was good.

“You’re off by a shilling,” said the duke.

Actually he wasn’t. He could see the error in his father’s
calculations, but he shrugged. “I would have double-checked my math before I
recorded my figures.” He winced as his father wrote in the wrong number.

When he was younger the duke had seemed infallible and
indestructible, but the skeletal man sitting in his rolling chair hardly
inspired the terror Beau felt in his younger years.

Beau leaned back. The truth was he understood the basics of
what his father was doing to manage the financial affairs. And while he was
curious about the numbers, watching his father transfer them off various papers
into the ledger was boring. “Perhaps I should do this and you check it over.”

The duke studied him.

“I’m sure I will have questions,” Beau prompted.

His father breathed in deeply and then shoved a sheaf of
papers his way. “You may as well catch up the household accounts ledger while I
settle the bills.”

For a while they worked in silence while Beau found the
columns to enter amounts for foodstuffs and dressmaker bills and his father
wrote out bank drafts to pay any outstanding tradesman’s bills. With
painstaking slowness to allow for the imprecision of his left-handed script,
Beau entered the amount paid to the cobbler for shoes for Etienne, a milliner
for a hat for the duchess, a dressmaker for his brother’s widow, but he had to
thumb back months to find an entry for Yvette and that was to the apothecary
for miscellaneous herbs.

“Why was my wife housed in a room on the nursery floor?”
asked Beau slowly. He didn’t want to pick a fight with his father, but he
wanted to know why she seemed to be treated oddly.

“She’s your wife now, is she?” said the duke.

“Well, you didn’t give me much choice.” As soon as the words
left his mouth he wished them unsaid. Beau carefully wiped the nub of the pen
then set it down. “After nine years and the revolution, I thought...”

His father stared into his eyes making him deuced
uncomfortable.

Beau cleared his throat. “With Etienne...there is no other
choice, is there? But I cannot think that if she was treated with less honor
than was accorded her station that would damage his claim.”

The duke bristled, glared, then leaned back. “She was put
into a room in the family wing but insisted she wanted to be closer to her
son.”

Beau ignored his father’s scrutiny and thumbed through the
pages of the ledger. He had to go back two years before he found entries for
black material and dressmaker bills for her.

“Her fashion tastes were modest as was appropriate for a
widow,” said the duke slowly. “She refused all your mother’s encouragement to
leave off her weeds. And she was encouraged.”

For a woman who wanted to be rich, she spent surprisingly
little on her apparel. While his sister-in-laws had regular additions to their
wardrobes, hats, gloves, parasols, not to mention dresses, it seemed Yvette had
only made a very rare purchase of black gloves or shoes and more often herbs.

Come to think of it, that yellow habit she wore had been
deuced ill-fitting, not only too tight but too short in the waist, which would
not have been the case if it had been made for her in the first place even if
she had gained weight since it was made. She must have borrowed it.

Everything he knew of her seemed suspect.

His father put his hand over Beau’s. “Perhaps now that she
is not a widow, you can persuade her to dress according to her station. It is a
wonder the neighbors don’t think she is a Quaker.”

“Catholic,” muttered Beau.

“She attends the Church of England with the rest of us.
Etienne is more troublesome in matters of religion.” His father squeezed his hand.
“She did not come here claiming to be your wife but only asked for help. I had
your letter reporting your wedding, Danver’s confirmation that the ceremony had
taken place before your sudden passing, and Etienne looked just like you. I
preferred to think my son would not have resorted to trickery to seduce a woman
of gentle birth.”

His father seemed to be asking for acceptance or perhaps
even approval, but the duke Beau remembered wouldn’t have cared what he
thought. Hadn’t really now. Had told him he’d accuse him of being an imposter
before he’d let him toss aside the marriage. But Etienne complicated
everything. And then there was Yvette. Beau rubbed his forehead.

Why had she followed him to his room last night? He’d
desperately wanted to pull her into his arms yet he’d done everything he could
to make certain she left him.

“We want to make changes to the suite.”

“Certainly. I can summon a cabinetmaker from London if you
will. What changes did you have in mind?” The duke’s easy compliance was not
what Beau expected.

“Doors.” But the word was bitter.

His father stiffened.

What if she hadn’t heard him the first night? And if he
hadn’t heard her nightmare, he wouldn’t have gone to her. The exotic taste of
her flesh wouldn’t haunt him, the feel of her skin, the pull of desire wouldn’t
be knotting in his stomach. Doors were the last thing he wanted.

“You don’t need doors.”

Energy flashed in his veins. Beau shoved back from the desk.
Curling his fingers into fists, he almost wished for one of their old verbal altercations,
although he’d sworn to God he’d be a dutiful son. “What is between Yvette and
me is not your concern.”

“I was a second son, and you are my third son. It very
nearly wasn’t enough.” His gruff voice was low and measured.

He walked across the room telling himself his father
couldn’t have known what Yvette had done to him when he took her in. Or what
her father had done to him. Beau’s thoughts swirled until his head pounded. “I
don’t know who is to blame for what happened to me, but she had to have known.”

His father sighed.

Beau stared out at the park rolling away from the house.
Nothing was wild and primitive in England and he’d longed for the tameness, the
order, except it was as if the wildness of the Caribbean had lodged in him and
wouldn’t let go.

He’d thought he’d get back to England and would be able to
resume a calm life, but there was Yvette who turned everything sideways.

He’d hated her so much and the hate had given him fuel to
get through each day, to find a way to escape, to not let her win by his
defeat. He’d even contemplated revenge, which was why he’d made the inquiries
of the rebels. Those inquiries had probably saved her life—and Etienne’s life,
but not those of her other children.

“Perhaps we are in need of a respite.” The duke thumped
around behind him and then rolled over beside him holding out a fat brown roll.
“These Havana cigars came this morning. And if you’ll just light them for us.”

The last thing Beau could fathom was deliberately inhaling
smoke. Did the duke not know of the weakness of his lungs?

“Sir, I do not smoke.”

“Is it too much to ask my only living son to sit down and
share a cigar with me?” demanded the duke.

“I will ring for Finley to assist you.”

“It’s just a damn cigar,” sputtered the duke. “Light mine so
I don’t have to wait until after dinner.”

After navigating through explosive subjects were they now to
battle over cigars? Beau shook his head. Or was it a reminder to the duke of
the weakness of his limbs that had him in the Bath chair and that he couldn’t light
his own cigar? But Beau had his own weakness. One that Yvette hadn’t shared
with the duke apparently. “I am surprised she did not tell you.”

“What?” spit his father.

“My lungs are weak from working the sugar cane. I cannot
tolerate smoke of any sort or they will seize.” Again.

“Your wife knows this.”

“She knows. She saw me barely able to breathe.” Just as
she’d seen the scars on his back. How could Yvette ever see him as anything
other than a pathetic weakling? Which was all the more reason he should want
the damn doors.

Chapter Fifteen

Etienne kicked a stone down the pathway through the gardens.
He’d finished his lessons for the day and Danvers had told him to go play
outside until it was time to eat. With all his cousins gone—even if they were girls—there
was no one to chase round the fountain or play hide and seek with. His new papa
was with the duke—probably having the estate lessons Etienne used to have with
his grandfather, and Danvers was taking his afternoon nap.

He lofted the stone with his foot and heard a satisfying
plunk as it landed in the fountain. Then he hunched his shoulders, feeling bad
for the gardener who would have to fish it out.

Etienne cast a glance over his shoulder and wondered if he
dared wade in and get the stone. It wasn’t as if the water was deep and no one
was minding him right now. The nursery maids had all gone off with his cousins
to visit relatives. He didn’t have any relatives to visit—Maman’s family was
dead. Besides that, no one had been paying much attention to him since his papa
arrived five days ago.

Well, other than his new papa gave him riding lessons in the
mornings and tucked him in at night even after they fought. It was a strange
thing being allowed to disagree with an adult. Papa wouldn’t let him shout or
anything but would listen when he talked. That made him feel more grownup.