I Married the Duke (24 page)

Joseph was again at her side, which she took to mean that Luc was not in the house. Accompanied by her burly footman, she made her way to the front of the house and began exploring rooms. When she came upon a modest-sized chamber furnished with a desk, two chairs, and a sideboard sporting an array of crystal carafes and glasses, she backed out of the doorway. Then she paused and went in again, shutting the door in the face of her guard, with a smile for him.

Her nerves were raw, her head aching and stomach queasy. A spot of brandy seemed just the thing to take the edge off of her agitation. Whenever it was that Luc allowed her to see him again, she would be calm and strong and not allow his teasing and secrets to hurt her.

She removed the stopper from a bottle, sniffed, her eyes sprang with tears and she coughed.

Brandy.

She took up a glass and dribbled a thimbleful into it, then made her way a chair and settled down. The pure luxury of doing nothing at ten o’clock in the morning but sitting in a comfortable leather chair and sipping spirits made her smile.

She was still smiling when she glanced at the papers piled in three neat stacks before her. She set down the glass and took up the folio on top of the stack in the center of the blotter.

Pursuant to your intention to petition Parliament for grant of a divorce: a complete and detailed accounting of your wife’s infidelities must be compiled, including dates, places, names, and all possible witnesses. In establishing her True and Undeniable Infidelity in preparation for a hearing of this sort, you must be willing to expose her thoroughly, including those factors in her family and youth that could provide grounds for character assassination. There is no easy way about this, and although I know that a man of your character will be loath to expose his family to public censure, these are the steps that must be taken to ensure your desired result.

It was clearly the draft of a letter, with smudges where the author had dipped his pen anew and words crossed and corrected in the margins. Arabella’s stomach churned nevertheless.

It must be a mistake
. Perhaps a prank? Luc would not insist that she wed him in order to immediately divorce her.

But he was hiding secrets from her.

She pulled the stack of papers toward her, and her hands threw each page aside after her desperate eyes scanned them. Her gaze arrested finally on a letter written in the same hand, another draft but signed this time.

The lady in whom you have expressed interest is Miss Caroline Gardiner, the eldest daughter of Lord Harold Gardiner and Lady Frances Gardiner. A new title, the estate is fifty miles northwest of Combe and prosperous. The portion to be settled on Miss Gardiner is fifteen thousand pounds, including rights to the operation of the mill at Gardiner Crossing. Potential investment in the mines on Lord Gardiner’s lands is to be considered separately from any marriage settlement. But in my estimation the lady’s portion is more than sufficient to reinvigorate the estate at this time, leaving ample surplus for future projects or to be spent on your properties in the North and in France, as you wish.

If I may, there is an added attraction: the girl is remarkably pretty and recently out of the schoolroom. As her parents are not longtime members of society, they are unaware of the exigencies that could serve as potential deterrents to the marriage. Indeed, I have it on good counsel that they will be more than eager to ally their family with Combe.

I will await your instructions before drawing up an official offer.

Sincerely,

Thomas Robert Jonas Firth, Esq.

An
heiress
?

Arabella felt astoundingly dizzy. She set the letter atop the pile and tried to draw even breaths. She suspected she would shortly succumb to panicked misery, but at present she felt only cold, metallic nausea and thorough confusion.

Luc had insisted she marry him.
Insisted
. Then he refused to give her an annulment. Then he asked her to marry him—
again
—not quietly to fulfill the requirements of the Church, but in a wedding entirely of her choice.

It made no sense. Except that Combe would benefit enormously from fifteen thousand pounds suddenly emptied into its coffers. With that money, the tenants would be round and merry in no time.

The tenants he had wanted her to know
.

She pressed a shaking hand against her face. What sort of game was he playing?

Abruptly she could not be still a moment longer. She bolted out of the chair. Her head spun and stomach heaved. She grabbed the edge of the desk and swallowed back her gorge.

With a wash of pure, hot awareness, she understood. Her body was rebelling because she was no longer alone in it.

She sank onto the chair and her hands stole to her belly then to her breast. The nipple was tender, her flesh ever so slightly fuller. It was not her gown the previous night that had displayed her bosom to such great advantage. It was Luc’s child growing inside her.

She smiled. Then she laughed. Then she cried.

Then she wiped the tears from her face and went to the door.

She would not release him. Despite his secretary’s letters and his continued distance, she did not believe he wished to release her. She would deliver him an heir as he needed and it would have brilliant green eyes. And she would help him solve the problem of the tenants’ poverty.

Armed with uncertain courage, her first order of business would be to send a footman to bring the modiste to the house. She was to be married—again—in ten days. She needed a wedding gown.

Chapter 16

The Wedding

“M
ust be nice to be nearly a duke, Luc old friend.” Captain Anthony Masinter of the HMS
Victory
stood at the helm of the hundred-twenty-two-gun man-of-war and surveyed his realm. “You can demand that the Royal Navy send its ship not only into port but up a river, for God’s sake, and the Admiralty leaps to it.”

Festooned with garlands of white flowers, paper lanterns, and servants rushing about, the vessel was nothing less than an elegant festival afloat on the Thames. Adina Westfall was a silly woman, but she knew the pomp that must attend such a wedding. All was celebratory.

Except his bride.

As the day drew near, she had been increasingly evasive. Claiming herculean tasks yet to accomplish, she took her dinners with Adina and Mrs. Baxter and spent much of every day in meetings with caterers, florists, and the like. Luc visited his club and met with Firth again, and tried not to crave a glimpse of her in passing. Pathetically, in the hopes of actually sitting in a room with her for several minutes, he visited Adina’s chambers. Arabella was not present, but Adina was loquacious.

“Oh, Luc, you will be the most splendid guardian to my baby, whether it is a boy or a girl,” she gushed. “I am delighted my darling Theodore arranged it thus.”

She was not intelligent enough to be a good actor; he believed her. Fletcher had not yet spoken to her. His threats were either for show or he did not wish to distress her until the baby was safely born.

Word came from Parsons that several of the tenant farmers had requested the opportunity to meet with him when he returned to Combe. The land steward asked him how long he would be absent on his wedding trip. Luc could not give him an answer.

He sent a note to his
comtesse
. . . who lived in the same house. Nearly six years as captain of one of the navy’s finest vessels, and he felt like an absolute imbecile that he could not even command the voluntary attention of his wife.

As Miles pulled his coat over his shoulders—a coat he would undoubtedly wear to dine alone—she poked her head into his dressing chamber. She wore a simple black gown that climbed all the way up her neck, and her glorious hair was braided in two thick plaits that fell over her shoulders. A Valkyrie’s hair. Rather, she looked like a girl training to be a governess. Both, combined. She wore no jewels or ribbons, not on her hands or in her ears or about her neck, and the lump of the ruby ring was missing from beneath her bodice. Her cheeks were flushed with pink and her lips parted.

“You wished to see me?”

In every way through every hour of every day.

His mouth was dry.

He gestured for Miles to leave and he walked to her. “I did.”

The tilt of her chin was high. But he could not resist touching her. He took the end of a braid between his fingers and stroked the satiny tress.

“I was reminded today that newly wedded couples often embark upon a wedding journey after the nuptials,” he said, feeling ridiculously clumsy, his tongue stiff. He looked down at the fiery locks in his palm. “Would you like that?”

“We will not be newly wedded, however,” she said. “And as we have already traveled quite a bit recently, I don’t really see why we should now do so simply to suit convention.”

He allowed the braid to slide from his fingers. He clasped his hands behind his back and met her gaze.

His heart jerked beneath his ribs. For a moment her eyes were soft, the light in them almost seeking, it seemed. Then they shuttered again.

It was this swift shuttering each time they spoke that restrained Luc from going to her bed at night. He could demand his rights as a husband and she would acquiesce; she was a woman of passion. But he could not use her like that. She deserved more than the treatment a man might serve his mistress. She deserved to be treated like the princess she had once hoped to be.

He didn’t know how much longer he could stand it, though. A sennight had already seemed like a millennium. If life with her were to be this slow, tortuous death of wanting her and not having her, he would have preferred to die on that beach in Saint-Nazaire after all.

But as he looked down at her lovely face and saw in it both wary reticence and adorable determination, he could not wish that in truth. Even brief moments alone with her were better than a lifetime without her. His madness, it seemed, had become complete.

“Do you?” she said.

“Do I . . . ?” He grasped at the strands of his reason unraveling in her presence, as they always did.

“Do you think we should bow to convention?”

He reached up to rub the back of his neck as though he were considering the matter. He was stalling for time. This issue was about to be settled, the conversation concluded, and she would leave.

“I have never found convention particularly inspiring,” he said. “But forgive me, little governess. I realize that teaching conventional manners must have been the ballast of your livelihood for some time.”

“To the girls who possessed no natural spark of originality, yes. To those with unique spirit, however, I encouraged . . .”

“You encouraged?”

“I encouraged them to follow their dreams in whatever manner they thought would most benefit them.”

His chest actually hurt. She had tried to follow her dream and he had trapped her just short of achieving it.

“I don’t suppose you offered the same counsel to their mothers.” He didn’t know how he accomplished a grin.

“Not precisely.” Her perfect raspberry lips curved into a small smile. “But one becomes proficient at speaking around the truth when one is in an unenviable posi—” Her throat constricted. “—position.” She took a quick breath. “I should go now. I have a hundred and two tasks to accomplish this afternoon.” Her entire demeanor had altered to agitation. “Is that everything you wished to discuss?”

“Yes,” he lied.

She glided away, and he stood still long after she had gone, his heart beating hard and slow.

He had not seen her in the two days since. And now he was to take her as his bride a second time, this time with the sanction of the Church of England.

“After you have captained this ship for nearly six years during war,” he said to Tony, “you will not have to be even a baronet to be given special privileges.”

Tony snorted.

From the quarterdeck Luc watched the wedding guests arriving across the pontoon boats that had been arranged as a sturdy walkway from the riverbank to the ship.

His heart turned. Upon his cousin’s arm, Arabella picked her way carefully across the fabricated bridge to the deck, her head high and shoulders back. She showed no hint of fear as she boarded. Her shimmering hair was swept up in cascading curls, and her gown of the palest pink left her neck and arms bare and offered a tantalizing hint of the feminine beauty beneath it.

With Cam, she passed beneath the white canopy erected above the gangway and came on deck.

Luc went forward.

“Ah, my dear,” his cousin said. “Here is your groom.”

She reached up and touched her hand to Cam’s cheek and kissed him there. “Thank you, my lord.”

Luc’s collar felt hot.

Cam offered her an elegant leg. “It has been my greatest pleasure to facilitate your nuptials. Again.”

Luc took her hand and drew her toward him. Her lashes lifted and the cornflowers were bright.

“Bugger off, Cam.”

“Charming, Lucien. Have you the rings?”

“With the sacristan at the church.” He did not shift his attention from her. “Now go away.”

“Ah, the Eager Groom. It seems that elusive creature does exist after all. Fascinating. My compliments to you, dear.” He grinned at Arabella and wandered off.

“He was kind to assist me aboard,” she said with a small smile.

“He will seize any opportunity to touch a beautiful woman.”

“And you, my lord?” she said with that directness that had dazed him from the first.

“I wish to touch only one woman.”

Disquiet flickered in the cornflowers. “I hope the woman to whom you refer is me.”

“For some time now, in fact.” He tried to speak lightly but he feared he sounded as much of a buffoon as he felt. “Are you well?”

She nodded, quick little jerks of her head that revealed she had not done away with her fear but with great effort hid it now.

“Why did you do this, Arabella? Why the ship when you are terrified of the water?”

“I have no wealth—”

“You have mine.”

“Wealth of my own.” Her chin remained high. “I wished to give you a wedding gift. I wished to please you in a manner— In a manner in which I had not pleased you before.”

“Duchess, if you had not already done so, do you think I would be here now?”

She curtsied as gracefully as a swan dipping its neck. “I am honored, my lord.”

“Arabella, I have—” Beyond her shoulder, a figure in black strolled onto deck. Fletcher looked left and right, and held the railing as though casually but with tight fingers.

Luc’s breaths stalled. “Did you invite that man?”

She turned. “Which one?”

“The one with the gold cross about his neck.”

She looked into his face. “Who is he, Luc?”

“The Bishop of Barris. Absalom Fletcher.”

“I did not see the final guest list. Adina supervised it. It is not peculiar that she should invite her brother.” She placed her hand on his. “I am sorry, Luc. Do you wish me to ask him to leave? Adina will not attend, of course, and I see no reason to have him here if it displeases you.”

He looked into her wide, compassionate eyes and wanted her to know everything. She had taken another woman’s children into her care until they were safe. She had begged for mercy for a thief because he was starving. She had sought to protect the Lycombe name from her family’s uncertain past. Yet he could not utter a syllable to her now. He could not tell her the shameful secrets of his past or his fears of the present.
He must protect her
.

She clasped his hand in her slender fingers. “He will not disturb our celebration,” she said firmly. “We will simply ignore him. I have been studying the art of the cut direct. According to Mrs. Baxter, it is a necessary weapon of a duchess. I don’t see why I cannot wield it as a
comtesse.
”

He wrapped his hand around hers.

“A siren with hair like white flame and eyes like summer cornflowers.” The young man at Luc’s shoulder spoke swiftly and with a soft flavor of the Continent. “My brother did you justice,
belle enfant
.”

Arabella feared she stared.

He seemed to hover upon the toes of his shining boots, leaning into Luc, his green eyes vibrant and mobile. “Your beauty does his admiration justice in return.” He smiled a gorgeous smile that lit up his face.

Luc’s hand slid from hers and went to the young man’s arm.

“You have come.”

“I could not miss my brother’s wedding.” He stepped around Luc and lifted her hand to his lips. “Christos Westfall.
Enchanté
.”

“Arabella, this is my brother.” Luc’s stance had broadened and his voice sounded fuller.

She curtsied but Christos urged her up. He angled close and his bright eyes swept her face, assessing.

“Luc,
elle est exquise
,” he said, drawing out the words. Then quickly: “Where did you find her?”

The corner of Luc’s mouth turned up. “In a tavern.”

“And yet her bones shout of royal blood.” Christos’s long fingers grasped her chin, tilting her head left then right. She allowed it, trying to smile, her belly a tangle of nerves. “You must dress her in purple and ermine and I will do a portrait of her. You will wear a crown, Belle.
J’insist!
No scepter, though. Scepters are for old whiskered kings, not princesses.”

“As you wish,” Luc said easily, but he watched his brother with the same intensity with which Christos studied her.

She drew gently from the cage of his fingertips. “I am so pleased you have come.” She held her voice level with effort. “The two of you must have much to speak of, and I have guests to greet. Please excuse me.”

She went blindly forward.

A small, strong hand grabbed hers.

“He looks just like the duke!” Ravenna whispered.

“In a manner, though slenderer and less substantial.” Eleanor came to Arabella’s other side. “Is that his brother, Bella?”

She nodded and gripped her sisters’ hands. “Stay with me. Please. I know so few of the people here and at this moment I think I may not be entirely prepared to be a
comtesse.
”

Eleanor returned the pressure. “Of course. But you are much stronger than even you realize, Bella. If you weren’t, you would not be a
comtesse
now.”

But that was not true. She was a
comtesse
because she had been indescribably weak, not strong. Now the man whose supposed unfitness had propelled her into marriage stood yards away, as perfectly fit a person as any other on the ship.

She greeted people she did not know with practiced poise, gracefully accepted their congratulations, and ignored their curious stares. There were elegantly garbed earls and impressive ministers and old dukes and fashionable countesses and barons and admirals and their lady wives in number, and she spoke to them all without trouble. The only man she could not speak easily with now was somewhere in the crowd with his black-sheep brother, his stance confident and a smile across his dashingly scarred face.

Eleanor and Ravenna had fallen into conversations with others. Her breaths increasingly quick and shallow, not from the gray water of the river all around but because of the panic rising in her, Arabella fled belowdeck.

Christos and Ravenna found her there.

“Belle! At last we have discovered you!” He moved with lightness and great grace. He was a beautiful man with all the character and intensity in his face of Luc’s yet none of the confident command. He sat down beside her and took her hand. “Your guests, they seek you out. Why do you hide?”

“
Are
you hiding, Bella?” Ravenna stood before her, hands on her hips, brow worried.