I Married the Duke (15 page)

A hand hovered above his chin. A hand with a cup. But his head was too heavy to lift.

“Damned wretched business,” Tony muttered. He reached around the back of Luc’s neck, tilting his head forward. “Drink up, old man. Must recover your strength speedily. Don’t want to leave that pretty wife of yours a widow for too long, now do you? A girl like that’ll find the fortune hunters beating down her door in no time.”

Luc sputtered out the wine.
“Widow?”

“Now look what you’ve done, Anthony. You have confused him and he hasn’t even been conscious for ten minutes yet.”

“I’m
alive
.”

“Objecting to the widow part,” Tony said, and stood again. “See here, Luc, old man, it had to be done. Poor girl. Devastated, don’t you know. But it was better that way. Safer for her.”

“Throt—” Pain twisted his bowels. He gasped for air. “Throttle the both of you.”

“I dare you to try.” Cam’s voice was smooth.

Luc relinquished the struggle. From the bone-familiar lull of his body as he lay still and the smooth oak ceiling above he knew he was in the captain’s quarters on the
Victory
. He was weak and his bedclothes were cold and damp. He’d been in fevers before. Even muddled, he recognized the aftermath.

He closed his eye and let himself sink into the cool bed linens. “Tell me.”

“Wise man.” Cam’s voice came closer. “You have perished, Captain Andrew of the
Retribution
. Your remains were deposited at sea from the deck of your old naval vessel upon which we are now sailing up and down the Breton coast.”

He waited.

“Why, you might ask, have we staged your premature demise yet labored in secret for lo this sennight to make ourselves liars? Because, you see, we believe you are a marked man. Or, rather, that you were. The assassins, having done the deed, are now presumably off the job. Until you are once again revealed to be alive, you’ve nothing to fear in your weakened state. In short, we wish you to recover fully before placing yourself in the line of danger again.”

Luc’s hands curled into fists. The pain in his gut spiked with each breath of anger.

“Let’s wait to explain the rest, Charles. Old boy’s looking terribly white about the mouth. Father Stewart, do bring—”

“Where. Is. She?”

“At the chateau,” Cam said. “Miles accompanied her there the day after the attack and placed her in Reiner’s care. She is safe there, and until we discover who it is that sought your death no one need know anything of her elevation to the aristocracy, which we believe to be optimal and with which you will no doubt concur. For her part, she seems disinclined to accept the validity of your hasty nuptials, which is for the best until we have gotten to the bottom of this.”

His scar ached. His shoulder ached. Breathing hurt. It all made him atrociously tired.

“Cutpurses,” he mumbled, sleep tugging at him.

“Assassins.” A crinkle of paper unfolding. “Look.”

He cracked his eyelid open and tried to focus on the page Cam held before him.

His face stared back at him. It was a perfect portrait, including the scar and kerchief. And it was quite clearly his brother’s work. Even signed at the bottom:
Christos W
.

“Anthony found this on the fellow that you killed on the beach. The other two men have not been found, but we believe from tracing their lodging in Saint-Nazaire that at least that one was Sicilian. Mercenary left over from the war, perhaps?”

“Scum,” Tony spat.

“So you see, cousin, we have cause to believe that somebody wishes the duke-to-be dead.”

“Not Christos,” Luc whispered.

“He is not at the chateau, Luc,” Cam said. “I have had a message from Mr. Miles. Your brother departed Saint-Reveé-des-Beaux a month ago claiming that he was off to Paris. He has not been heard from since.”

Luc’s mind was fuzzy. “A month . . .”

“A month ago, after our uncle died, bringing you perilously close to the dukedom, and young, mad Christos next.”

“No.”
Impossible
. “Impossible,” he whispered, then sleep dragged him under.

H
E AWOKE IN
the dark and struggled to place himself, then to recall.

“Cam?” His throat was on fire.

“Abed, lad,” Gavin said by his side, then helped him to drink. “Ye gave us all a guid fret. He’s no’ slept in a sennight.”

“Guilt.” He would laugh if it wouldn’t plunge him into agony.

“Devotion. Luves ye like a brither. Always has.”

Which was probably true. And given the deed of which he had unjustly accused his cousin seven months ago, Cam had been forgiving to only cut out his eye.

“Christos?”

“Anthony’s sent a man to Paris to find him.”

“Wasn’t him.”

“Aye, lad. But we’ve got to be certaint, nou dinna we?”

“Cam must go—” Pain shot through his gut, gripping his lungs.

“To the chateau. Aye. He’s already packed to leave in the morn.”

Luc managed a grimace. “Seems I’m not needed for anything,” he whispered.

“Anly to heal up fast. There be a lass who’ll be happy to see ye hale.”

That, or discovering him snatched from the brink of death, she would finish the deed herself.

T
HE PRINCESS AND
prince returned from the hunting party a mere hour after the housekeeper told Arabella that the Earl of Bedwyr had arrived at the chateau.

Arabella awaited her royal charge in the parlor. Jacqueline spared no time in seeking her out there. With the train of her riding habit slung over her elbow, she drew off her gloves as she hurried into the chamber.

“Dear Arabella, how I missed you! I feel quite like you are my sister already. That is how urgently I wished to tell you every little thing that happened while I was away.”

“You honor me, your highness.”

The princess slanted her a suspicious eye. “Don’t tell me you are to become all stuffy and governesslike now that my brother has returned.”

“I—”

“No! I told you not to tell me, and I fear you are about to do just that. Instead come with me to my dressing chamber while I do away with this awful habit. I simply loathe riding to hounds, but that was all anybody would talk of—this hunter and that bitch and of course the countless foxes bagged and strung up for decoration.”

Arabella smiled. “Was it dreadfully dull?”

“I swear to you, Bella, I had nothing whatsoever to say to anybody the whole time. But that really isn’t anything out of the ordinary. I am horridly shy in company.”

Her disbelief showed.

The princess shrugged her straight shoulders. “I am wonderfully comfortable with a book or pen, and not at all at my ease with gentlemen and ladies of society. My tongue ties.” She linked her arm in Arabella’s and drew her into the corridor. “That is one of the reasons I like you. You never say a thing that makes me want to retreat behind the tapestries.”

“I cannot believe you.”

“But it is all too true. Sadly. Reiner knows my trouble, you see, and I’m afraid he hired you under false pretenses. I suspect you imagined you were to have a pupil who could open her mouth in regular company, but instead you are saddled with a filly that balks at the merest glimpse of a dog and positively runs in the other direction when a fox is near.”

Arabella laughed. It felt awful and a great relief at once.

“Ah, the sweet laughter of a lady,” came the earl’s voice from behind them. “What balm to the weary masculine soul.”

Arabella turned. Beside her, the princess gasped.

Lord Bedwyr stood at the other end of the corridor before the drawing room door, typically resplendent, his linens snowy and a hint of lace dripping from his cuffs. His hair was artfully disarranged and his smile was gorgeous.

Beside him the Prince of Sensaire seemed downright ordinary.

Arabella had once seen the Prince Regent of England from a distance. He was a florid-faced man of enormous girth and flamboyant dress, and certainly above fifty. At that moment she had cast off any childish imaginings she’d had that the prince she would wed would be young, handsome, or dashing.

Prince Reiner was not handsome or dashing, but in appearance he was as far from the Prince Regent as he was from the Earl of Bedwyr. Quite tall, he was lean from jaw to leg, lending him a lancelike air. He wore a neat white coat with military epaulettes, his color was robust, and his face, though not truly handsome, featured a fine, laughing pair of eyes.

“Reiner,” the earl said, “may I make you acquainted with my cousin, Miss Caulfield?”

The prince bowed.
“Enchanté, mademoiselle.”

Arabella curtsied.

“And, Bedwyr, I must introduce you to my sister,” the prince said. “Jackie, I am pleased to have you know the Earl of Bedwyr, Westfall’s close companion since childhood.”

“Your highness.” Lord Bedwyr offered the princess an elegant bow.

Jacqueline dropped her eyes to the floor.

The earl turned away from her. “Reiner, old friend, news has come from England. Westfall is nearly Lycombe.”

“I heard. The ducal uncle is dead.”

“God bless his damned soul.”

“Have you heard from our friend lately, then?” the prince said. “Has he hurried back to London to await his fate, leaving you to enjoy his chateau in his stead?”

“In fact he is in France and intends to pay a call upon our merry party here.” He smiled at her and the princess. “Now, until our host arrives, whatever shall we do with our time?”

“
Y
OU MUST ATTEND
me at dinner every night, Bella,” Jacqueline insisted. “Those foolish waiting ladies my mother chose for me cannot be counted on to make interesting conversation, and I . . .”

She was infatuated with the earl. Arabella needed no special powers of observation to see that.

“You are shy in company,” she only said.

“I am shy in company.” The princess’s cheeks were not pink, but sallow. Apparently she found more distress than pleasure in her infatuation. Arabella understood well.

“Please, Bella. I would very much like it.”

It was what she had dreamed for years: to be thrown into the intimate company of a marriageable prince. Now she hadn’t any interest in it, but she did as Jacqueline requested.

A
SENNIGHT LATER
the princess announced to Arabella her readiness for schooling. “I wish to be less . . . reticent.”

“You are not naturally reticent.” Only befuddled by a man. “You need only the smallest instruction to be able to make your way comfortably in London society.” Not all gentlemen in society were as handsome as the earl, she wanted to say. Nor as provoking. He had not spoken to her of his cousin, but occasionally he glanced at her assessingly. When she caught him out he would grin then say something outrageously flirtatious to one of the waiting ladies or invite the prince on a ride or make some other transparent excuse in order to avoid her. But she had no more wish to speak to him of Luc than he had to speak with her.

It was not until a fortnight had passed that he sought her out.

“Good heavens, my dear,” he said, coming toward her across the rose garden green, hat in hand and hair glimmering in the sunshine. “Are you still wearing your governess uniform? I thought you promised to purchase a new gown. And shoes, if I recall correctly.”

“I see that three weeks of mourning has not cured you of inappropriate raillery, my lord.” She turned away from him to the basket into which she was placing roses that she cut.

“As it has not cured your propensity for doing the work of servants. Hasn’t Reiner gardeners for this sort of thing?” He gestured to her basket.

“I enjoy it. And I am a servant.”

For a moment the silence was punctuated only by the merriment of birds in the hedgerow nearby and the snap of her clippers.

“I am here to make good on my promise to my cousin.” His voice did not tease now.

“To purchase for me a new gown and shoes? That is as ridiculous as any other part of it all.”

“Not to purchase a gown.” His face was quite sober.

“You bear no responsibility toward me, my lord.”

“Indeed I do.” His gaze slipped down to where she held her hands tightly together at her waist, and then she understood. He would remain with her until she knew whether she carried Luc’s child.

“I could lie to you,” she said, a strange, sorrowful desperation building in her. “I could bear another man’s child and claim it was your cousin’s in order to take advantage of my connection to you, a lord. How do you know I would not do that in the hopes of securing my future so that I will never again have to be a servant?”

“Because I know my cousin. A great deal better than you, it seems.”

Her lungs stung. “I came here to marry a prince,” she said nonsensically.

“My dear, in all things but title you already have.”

It could not be. She was not meant to have wed him. He had not been a prince and he had not recognized the ring. And he was gone.

He was gone
. The finality of it swept down upon her.

The earl stepped forward and drew her into his arms. She pressed her face against the exquisite lapel of his coat and wept.

A
RABELLA RETURNED TO
the gardens the next day and the next, and for the sennight following. Grand yet tranquil, the labyrinthine pathways allowed her hours of solitude in which she was not obliged to suffer the earl’s scrutiny. She strolled between manicured flower beds then wandered a wooded path to a fountain fashioned of stone caryatids elevating a shell. As she walked she composed letters to her sisters which she never wrote.

When a carriage drawn by four matching gray horses rumbled up the drive, she paused and from a distance watched its passengers disembark. Four servants in the black and silver livery of the house came forth and flanked a gentleman, walking protectively around him up the stairs.

Arabella returned to the house and sought out Jacqueline.

“Has your mother’s retinue returned?”

“Oh, no, not yet, thank heaven.” Jacqueline dipped her pen into an ink pot. “The
comte
has come home at last.”