Duke Herheart Final (30 page)
Read Duke Herheart Final Online
Authors: Olivia Ritch
He regarded her, knowing she had more to say. Her revelation left him wondering…
“I didn’t run away you know. I promised I wouldn’t. I had just gone out into the garden to think about how to tell you it was time for me to go. This...interlude has made it easier to form the words. I had planned to say, ‘Michael, I cannot stay here…with you’.”
“Why ever not?” His heart that had just begun to return to its normal rhythm twisted viciously at this unpleasant practiced pronouncement.
“I don’t plan to be your mistress and I know you would not let go now that we have made love and I know you enjoy our pleasuring each other and while you offered to marry me, I can’t believe you really meant it or that ours would be the kind of partnership I would have to have. You’re a Duke and I’m me, and I have too much pride to watch you with someone else. Then, there’s the whole business of you not trusting me and me not belonging here. ” She paused then laughed shallowly. “You know, Stafford thought
that you really wanted me to be
your Duchess.
An actual Duchess for crying out loud. He was crazy, wasn’t he?”
“Stafford thought right.” Michael interrupted and she looked at him with wide questioning eyes. “He knew I would make you my Duchess and you would help me fill my nursery with children and he would never get his hands on my title.”
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She spluttered. “But I cannot be a proper Duchess! You and your aunt have said so. You saw them looking at me at your ceremony. They thought I was your mistress.”
“No, thankfully, you will not be a proper Duchess but you will be a perfect duchess. The love of my life the…”
“The love of your life? Really? You love me?”
“Yes, you daft woman, I love you.”
“Are you going to ask me to marry you again?”
“No. I am informing you that today, this afternoon, the wedding of the Duke of Asterleigh to Miss Kathryn Ragland will take place and then you will be my Duchess and we will have no more of this nonsense that I don’t love you or want our children or want to teach them to fish or have passion for you, that I will betray you with other women, or that we’re not …how did you say it, to-die-for in love?”
“Oh” formed on her lips and she went to protest. “But
I
cannot marry you…”
Stopping her outrageous speech in mid sentence, he captured her mouth with his and plundered her with the power of the ravenous beast, the animal denied his meal for far too long. Michael’s heart soared as he gathered his perfect love into his arms.
When he allowed her tense form to push from him again, she regarded him warily. “I am so grateful he did not get you into that building after me, but …”
“My love, you can see he has not tricked me and I am fine and we are to be wed.”
“Ah, but Stafford, you are wrong. I
have
tricked you.”
Michael and Kathryn snapped their gazes up into Harold Stafford’s wild eyes and found themselves staring into the barrel of a long pistol.
Perched on his horse, Harold Stafford let out a long satisfied cackle.
“Your little lady underestimated me, Stafford. She thought that my plan had only one grand ending but in truth, this was the ending I sought.
I knew she would run and you would be waiting and I would have you cornered here. Another messy accident would not sit well with the
ton
and there might be a shadow on my ascendance. No, I need to have you killed here in the Dials, fallen upon by thieves during an assignation with your less-than-worthy American whore.”
“Ah, Stafford, a splendidly intricate plan. Now you have me, you can send Kathryn on her way.”
“No, you will not…” she demanded.
“Look at the lovebirds. No, Stafford, your Kathryn is just the person I want to be here. Her death will cause you the pain you so richly deserve 181
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and I intend on killing her first to torture you.”
Michael’s hold on Kathryn’s elbow stiffened into iron as he contemplated the force he would need to use to push her when the gun discharged. “Surely not even you would shoot a lady Harold? Isn’t that below a man of your stature?”
“A man of my stature? I have no stature since you took what was mine…Catherine. She was
my
love and I believe the child she carried was mine. She tricked you into marrying her because she wanted you.
And you took her because of that misguided sense of honor of yours. I saw how little attention you paid her and she groveled at your feet. I felt her death to my bones. The only joy was knowing she had taken the child with her that you seemed to want.
“You rejected her, Harold. She had no one else to turn to for her babe.”
“She should have given me a chance if she had really wanted me,”
Harold spat, his voice rising even higher with his rage.
“You should have married her before you ruined her,” Michael declared icily.
“I would have if I had known. It’s her fault and your fault. Now, I will take your
new
Kathryn and visit on you the pain you caused me.”
With that, Michael saw Harold steel his grip, sight the target and pull the trigger…the sound so loud it echoed off the confining walls of the close buildings. Michael pushed Kathryn with all due force hoping to make a fraction’s difference in the bullet’s trajectory, then dove for her as she stumbled limply back on the cobbles. Michael caught her arm, at that moment feeling the warm liquid seep through the fabric of her sleeve. In the dark, the widening stain shone black on the borrowed linen shirt. “
Kathryn, no!”
he bellowed.
Falling with her to the street trying to place his body between hers and the unforgiving cobbles, Michael’s glare aimed in Stafford’s direction where he saw the bastard slip slowly off the saddle, his lifeless form hitting the street in a gangly pile. Stafford’s frightened horse bolted leaving him alone, the accompanying pool of dark liquid quickly forming a flowing river of blood.
“Kathryn, Kathryn?” The blood stain on her arm was growing steadily, dripping over her shoulder and the pressure of his hand was not enough to stanch it. He tore at her shirttails for bandages and whispered to her to keep her with him while sweat stung his eyes and tears dripped on her ashen face. He found the opening in her fine skin just below her shoulder under the torn sleeve of her arm and placed a bundle of cloth into the wound. Then he wound more strips from her now shredded 182
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clothing around her body as a bandage. It was again a terrible sense of
déjà vous
.
“Michael, how is she?” a familiar voice asked from behind him.
Matthew Drake was leaning over Harold Stafford, two pistols in hand.
“Matthew, is he…”
“Yes, but how is Kathryn?”
“She’s hit, bleeding heavily but breathing. Help me get her to the carriage.”
Michael sent Worley ahead on horseback to warn the staff of Kathryn’s injury. His coachman drove like the devil was chasing them and thankfully, when they gained the mews, two footmen were waiting to meet him and help her into the house flooded with light. Hallthorpe admitted them through the rear, the look of fear in place of his usual elegant façade.
* * * *
Beside her, a delicate silver candelabra glowed gently, and in the chair by her bed, Michael’s slumped, disheveled form.
She regarded him for some minutes, with his short midnight curls drooping over his forehead and black lashes resting on his high cheekbones. His breathing was strong but his color was…pale. He had probably been sleeping in the chair for…
ow
…she moved her left arm and a stabbing pain so real it stole her breath, ripped though her shoulder. She sucked in another breath and with her sudden movement, Michael roused.
“Kathryn, you’re awake.” She had been unconscious for hours, maybe days, he could no longer tell day from night for his vigil at her bed had been his only concern, so he infused each word with the relief he felt. The Doctor had feared her loss of blood might prevent her from ever waking but her strength had surprised them all. When that first morning had dawned and she was still with him, Michael knew somehow she would survive and he would not lose her. He
could not
lose her after all they had been though and how deeply she was a part of him. “You gave Hallthorpe a terrible fright and Mrs. Staggs has been an absolute tyrant over you. I am surprised she allowed me to sleep here last night.”
Kathryn gave him her bravest smile. “You slept here last night? In 183
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that chair? It seems we’ve played this scene before haven’t we?”
“So we have. Well, actually I read for a while and talked to you and only once I determined that I had most assuredly won our latest argument, I drifted off.”
“Harold…is he..?” She was afraid of the answer. If he was still out there, Michael was still in grave danger.
“Yes, Matthew Drake was with me. You didn’t think I’d let an idiot like Harold Stafford outflank me did you?”
“Well, I doubt this was in your plan.” She raised her arm and winced. Teasing him at her own expense. Well, there wasn’t much point.
Suddenly serious, Michael said, “No. Your getting shot was not in my plan. His getting shot
was
in my plan. The part that truly was not in my plan was your disappearance. I thought you had tried to leave me.”
He said it softly, plaintively.
“I thought it was time but now I realize I might have been wrong.”
“You
were
wrong. This is your home now.”
As if he had asked her a question with that last statement, she fixed a playful grin on her face and said, “I remember something about marriage…?” her words trailed off.
“Yes, well about that. There was the little matter of your injury and the disposing of the crimes against Harold and well, we had to postpone the wedding.”
Her heart sank into her stomach and she held the pasted on smile as best she could. “I understand.” She bowed her head.
“Do you?” He grinned at her, then winked.
“I-I…don’t guess I do, actually.” All of this teasing was making her exceedingly tired.
“My love, your bravery is all the
ton
is talking about and as I am the newest Duke and together we rolled up one of London’s most notorious criminals to boot. Everyone wants to attend our wedding. We are to be wed in four weeks, once you are well, at St. George’s.”
“St. George’s Cathedral?” Her eyes grew wide. “Me, a wedding in
…I can’t think. What will I wear? How will I ever plan that kind of a wedding?”
“Darling, that will be entirely the pleasure of my aunt, sister and various relations who have been chomping at the bit for you to rouse so they could get started. It is making Agatha and Cassandra the absolute most sought after party guests you know. Telling our story. It’s been declared more romantic than Mr. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet!”
She assembled every last bit of her energy and blessed him with her most loving smile and she saw that he recognized it for what it was. He 184
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dropped a whispered kiss on her lips, the sensation sending shivers through her and she pulled him to her, pressing her lips to his ear. “Well since they have all the details handled, I guess you’ll just have to keep me entertained.” And then
she
winked at
him
.
Michael knew that at any minute he might be shuffled from her room by Mrs. Staggs but could not resist the urge to slide between the sheets with her. “How do you like your room? I did it like this because you said you liked bright colors.”
“My room? This is my room? Where are we?”
“We’re back in Asterleigh House of course, on Grosvenor Square.
Our home.”
“And this is my room? I had always stayed in the Dowager’s room.”
She was genuinely surprised.
“Well, this is the room where your clothes will hang and your maid will attend your hair but our Chamber lies through there. You will sleep with me.”
“But for right now, you are in
my
bed.” Her naughty whisper prickled his skin and he slid his fingers gently over the wound to test the security of her bandages.
“My dear, are you up to showing me your appreciation for this room?”
“Yes, Michael. The bullet hole is in my arm I believe. However, you will have to do more of the heavy lifting.” He set to work doing his best to show her the benefits of silk sheets and she showed him just how much she appreciated them.
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The music trilled and they began the slow procession back down the aisle waving to the few people she did know and smiling for all of the others. She had waited for this moment to break the news, knowing it would be a most triumphant impropriety.
“Michael, darling?”
He regarded her with an eyebrow raised and kept his smiling eyes trained down the line of guests. “Yes, my love?”
“What is the proper name given to the…the
heir
to the Asterleigh Dukedom?”
“Hawthorne. My heir is the Marquess of Hawthorne. Why do you want…?” He looked at her with his big baby browns and when she winked, his mouth dropped open.
“You’re gawking darling. Close your mouth and smile,” she teased.
“Do you know for sure?’
“Oh, very sure. I do believe he will be here in time for Easter.”
“Well Duchess, that is very improper…what will the matrons say when they realize we anticipated our wedding?” he returned sheepishly.
“They will probably say,
about demmed time
he got on with his nursery.”
They reached the nave and he turned to kiss her right there with every eye in the great cathedral trained on them. “I love you my most perfect Duchess. You are the woman of my dreams.”