Never Desire a Duke (One Scandalous Season) (20 page)

Vane tamped down his first instinct to explode. This was not at all how he had imagined his and Sophia’s morning to begin. They should have awakened quietly in each other’s arms so that he could reassure her that the night before had not been a mistake. Though heartened by her exhortation to lock their door tonight, he could not help but notice she’d not once actually met his gaze this morning. Perhaps she had regrets. Perhaps she had not been affected as deeply as he had. For the first time in his life, he doubted his ability to seduce, which seemed perfectly, disturbingly
right
given she was the only woman he’d truly ever wanted. What if the thaw came today, and she insisted on returning to London straightaway?

They needed more time. If only he could get the interlopers out of his house.

“You are the one who created this debacle.” Claxton crossed his arms over his chest. “Don’t expect me to be your second.”

Haden shoved the tumble of dark hair from his eyes. “That’s just it, your Grace. It’s not me he wants to duel.” He offered a sheepish look. “It is you.”

“Why Claxton?” Sophia demanded from where she had come to stand at his side, one hand fisted at the center of her chest.

Vane pressed his fingertips against his eyes, almost certain that they were about to pop out of his head. “Yes, what her Grace just said. Please explain.”

“His lordship is certain there is some scheme afoot, that I have merely been designated by you as a scapegoat to soothe difficulties at home with the Duchess of Claxton.”

Vane’s eyes narrowed on his brother. “Why would he think such a thing?”

Haden unfolded his long legs and stood, shaking out his rumpled greatcoat. “Perhaps because it is exceedingly clear that Lady Meltenbourne and I can hardly suffer one another’s company.” He exhaled and rolled his eyes. “Good God, Claxton. She is the most tiresome chit.” He crossed the carpet and knelt to add another log to the hearth.

“I am not tiresome,” said a voice from the stairs. Lady Meltenbourne descended in her winter finery, looking like an affronted queen. But tears glimmered against her lashes. “The truth is, Meltenbourne has cast me aside. I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“This is your fault, Haden,” Claxton said, storming back to the window.

“No, it is all my fault,” said the countess. “I behaved abominably! I allowed the earl to believe I’d been unfaithful, when I hadn’t been, not really. It’s because I
wanted
him to cast me off. I never saw myself married to such an old man, but my father insisted. Now that I have, I’m s-s-so very miserable.” She burst into tears.

Claxton glared at Haden. “You should never have brought her here.”

Haden interjected, scowling, “Yes, yes, I understand that now, but what are we going to do about the earl? He seems quite intent on shooting someone.”

“Yes,
me
,” Claxton retorted.

“Just apologize to him,” said Lady Meltenbourne. “That would settle everything, I feel quite certain.”

Vane pivoted toward her in outrage. “Apologize for what? An affair I did not have with his wife?”

“It’s ungentlemanly to shout at a lady,” the countess wailed.

“I wasn’t aware I was shouting at one.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, but once gone, gave him no small degree of satisfaction.

“I don’t know what I ever saw in you.” Annabelle buried her face in a handkerchief. “Horrible man!”

Haden called from the window, “The boy is bringing a note. I can only assume he is acting as his lordship’s second.”

Vane marched through the vestibule and wrenched the door open. With a growl, he snatched the folded paper from the boy’s hand and slammed the door closed again.

Opening the missive, he read aloud, “No need for negotiations or false apologies. Just die. Die. Die.” He tossed the paper into the air. It fell in a zigzag fashion to the floor. In exasperation, he fisted his hands on his hips. “That’s all it says.”

“What do you propose to do?” asked Sophia, her lips thin with apprehension.

He glared out the window, assessing the gathering crowd, all knee-deep in the snow and bundled up so that only their eyes gave evidence of their humanity. “I suppose there is nothing left to do but to fire a shot at the old bastard.”

Lady Meltenbourne’s eyes widened. “You’re going to agree to his demand for a duel?” Her expression became frantic. “But he is
elderly
.”

He advanced on her, herding her into the corner, she backing away, nearly tripping over her ermine hem.

“You should have thought of that long ago before you started playing games with people’s lives.” He uttered each word with blistering heat. “It is not I who issued the blasted challenge. I am in no position to deny his demand.”

God, he just wished they would all disappear and leave him alone again with Sophia. Could a man not be snowbound with his wife without half of England arriving to interfere?

He hissed, buttoning his collar. “It is the only way I can see to get us past the present crisis. Years ago I attended a hunt with the earl. If memory serves, the earl is a dreadful shot and could not hit the side of St. James’s if he was standing five feet from it. Haden, you will act as my second.”

“It is the least I can do,” Haden answered wryly. He buttoned his greatcoat and smoothed his hair into a more decorous appearance.

Vane tied his cravat at his throat. “Please inform the gentleman on the front steps that I will agree to the duel, and indeed that I wish to issue my own challenge based upon the earl’s continued false and unsupported aspersions against my character, which have deeply offended me and the duchess. One-shot only terms.”

Lady Meltenbourne burst out in a sob and clasped a handkerchief to her nose. “Please don’t hurt him.”

Vane looked at Sophia, his expression grave. “Please know if the duel goes unexpectedly awry, everything is in order to see that you are well taken care of. You should never need to marry again, unless you should so wish.”

Sophia’s face drained of color, and at last, yes, her green eyes met his.

“Why would you say something like that?” demanded Haden, frozen in place. For a moment, Vane had to blink, because his brother didn’t even look like the same person, devoid of his humor.

Moisture glistened on Sophia’s lashes, and her lip quivered. “I don’t want you to go out there.”

Her tears unsettled him but also gave him hope, even more than their lovemaking the night before. Could it be that she truly had feelings for him? He drew her aside, a hand at her elbow. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. It’s just that you never know what will happen. I’m certain all of this will be over in a moment.”

He kissed her forehead. Then he opened the door and followed Haden outside.

Sophia turned to Annabelle, who sank down onto the bottom stair. “I love Meltenbourne. I don’t want him or anyone else to die.”

“If that’s true, Annabelle, then you have to do something. And you have to do it now.”

A
nnabelle, you’ve got to hurry,” said Sophia, urging the countess toward the distant field. Together they ran through the snow.

The countess stumbled, struggling with the cumbersome magnificence of her cloak.

“It’s too late,” she sobbed. “I can’t stop them now.”

“Yes, you can, if you hurry.”

Despite the frigid temperatures, Vane had removed his coat. Wind swept across the field and ruffled his hair. Standing boot deep in the snow, he handed his two-barrel flintlock to Haden, who marched forward to meet the earl’s young second. Each confirmed only one ball occupied the chamber before returning the weapons to their masters.

With that, the seconds moved aside to join the silent crowd of spectators who had drawn back to provide wide berth for errant shots. Sophia was abruptly consumed by a wild terror. Not for a moment did she believe that Claxton would actually shoot the earl. What she had feared, with a sudden and overwhelming certainty, was that by some chance of fate the earl’s bullet would find its mark in her husband’s heart.

If Claxton died—

The world spun around her, a kaleidoscope formed of stone, gray sky, and ice. She couldn’t breathe.

On the snow-blanketed lawn, the two duelists stood back-to-back and at Haden’s count began their paces.

She turned to the countess. “If the earl shoots Claxton, God forgive you, because I never will.”

Annabelle dropped the cloak from her shoulders and broke into a run.

“Meltenbourne,” she wailed.

Sophia followed, but over the countess’s head, she saw the pistols raised and cocked.

“Stop, darling!” screamed the countess. “Don’t do it.
I love you.
”

The earl turned his head to her. “Annabelle? Are you talking to me? Or him?”

“You!”

Suddenly, the snow upon which he stood collapsed.

With a bellow, the old man disappeared, until only his arm remained visible above the surface, his knobby hand clutching the pistol. The weapon discharged into the sky. The crowd roared with laughter and approval.

Claxton, expressionless, fired his pistol into the snow, several feet to the side of his boot.

“Oh, thank God,” Lady Meltenbourne sobbed, rushing toward the men. Sophia followed, but slower now, each breath painful, as if chilled by frost.

Striding forward through the snow, Claxton wrested the gun from the earl’s hand and peered into the hole. “Now, enough of this nonsense. I will suffer no more of your unfounded accusations, as they highly offend not only my sensibilities, but those of her Grace.”

“Here, here,” shouted several villagers.

Reaching into the hole, Claxton hauled his lordship out by his arms. Red-faced and clearly abashed, the earl sputtered out complaints about the weather and the misfortune of faulty firearms. Lady Meltenbourne collapsed, embracing him.

Sophia reached them just then. “Lord and Lady Meltenbourne, please come inside and out of the cold. I’ll make tea.”

Claxton’s head swung toward her, eyes wide and blazing. “What did you just say?”

“Lady Meltenbourne has something to say to her husband.” She looked at the countess. “Isn’t that so?”

Annabelle lifted a tearstained face from Lord Meltenbourne’s neck. “So much to say. And to you as well, your Graces. I have been the most foolish woman, and I beg you all to forgive me.”

Inside, Sophia saw to the tea service. Afterward, she fled the house. Emotionally raw and unable to remain inside for another moment, lest she burst into tears in front of everyone, she made her way through the snow toward the cemetery. Alone at last, she exhaled the breath she had been holding for what seemed an eternity. Her breath puffed out, white vapor against white snow, and she pulled her cap down over her ears.

Thank God Claxton had not been killed. Tears blurred her vision. She’d danced along a dangerous cliff for the past two days and had at last tumbled down, head over heels. Her neat little plan to wait to make love with him, until her heart could be held separate, lay burned to ash at the bottom of that pit.

Now, as a result, her heart felt as if it had been torn out of her chest and put back in place, but upside down. If only she was not so physically attracted to his handsome face, his brawny muscles, and his magnificent—

“Oh!” She kicked the snow and muttered a very unladylike curse. He was an indulgence she’d found herself unable to resist.

But if she were honest, her feelings went much deeper than that. These past several days she’d seen something else in his eyes, an openness she’d never perceived in him before. He’d always been so cool and imperturbable before, his ducal façade never wavering. It was as if Lacenfleet had unlocked some hidden part of him, a missing piece that completed the puzzle of him.

Did that make him a
better
man, one capable of constancy, no matter the trial or misfortune?

What would happen after Christmas, when the magic faded? What if she became pregnant only to lose the baby again, like her dear friend Lady Peyton, who had endured not one, but four miscarriages over the past three years? Without a child to keep them together, what would happen to their marriage? Would it dissolve into the same sad state as before?

This morning, after waking to the shocking realization of Lady Meltenbourne snuggled up asleep beside her, she’d quickly gathered up her clothing to dress in the next room. And yet, for some reason, she’d hesitated at taking Claxton’s list. She had even considered throwing the despised piece of paper on the grate to curl, blacken, and dissolve into ash.

But…what had changed between them since last night? Nothing, other than she’d surrendered a large measure of the power she had battled so fiercely to assert and now felt weaker for the loss.

No matter how much the earth had trembled for her when they’d made love, she could not be so foolish as to believe some magnificent transformation of her husband or their relationship had occurred simply because they were again sharing intimacies. To do so would return her to the same indefensible position in which she’d been before.

In the end, she had snatched the folded paper up as well, a reminder to keep her heart in its rightful place, behind its safe little wall—not in her lover’s hands.

“My lady,” a voice called, drawing her attention.

Haden rode horseback toward her from the stable.

Quickly she wiped her eyes. “Lord Haden.”

He dismounted smoothly, his boots crunching on the snow, and removed his hat. Drawing the animal by its reins, he walked toward her, cleared his throat, and laughed.

“Well. Thank God things turned out as they did.”

Beside him, the animal stamped and snorted.

“Indeed.” She smiled, struck in that moment by Lord Haden’s similarity of appearance to her husband. The stark winter light revealed the younger man’s hair to be a shade lighter than Vane’s. While they shared the same startling blue eyes and height, Haden’s face and physique were decidedly leaner, more leonine, and elegant than Claxton’s muscled stature.

“I—ah—well—” he stammered handsomely, peering at her with an almost boyish shyness. “I have already apologized to my brother. I wished to apologize to you as well.”

“You already apologized inside.”

“Insufficiently.” He rotated his hat in his hands. “If not for me bringing Lady Meltenbourne here that first night, this duel and all the rest would never have happened.”

“You certainly added excitement to what could have been four dreary snowbound days.”

“You are too kind, I’m afraid.” He glanced down at his boots. “My behavior of the last week, and indeed, for the whole of my life, has been nothing short of reckless.” His lips twitched. “And thoughtless. At some time we must all come to the realization it’s time to become an adult. I am twenty-eight years old. I suppose I’m long past due for that, and it is time for a change.”

“Thank you for saying so, Haden, and of course I accept your apology.”

He nodded again and shifted his stance. His gloved hand tightened on the reins.

“My brother is fortunate to have married a woman such as you.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you to say.”

“No, not thoughtful.” He shook his head and winked at her. “Just true. I can only hope that one day I will be as fortunate. I know I’ve been very much absent, but I’d like to be a better brother, not only to Claxton, but also to you.”

The earnestness with which Lord Haden spoke earned him a very immediate and solid place in her heart. “It would make me very happy to see more of you.”

His cheeks flushed. “Wonderful. And I say that not just because you have two very lovely, ever-so-charming unmarried sisters. Daphne and Clarissa—they are both well and…remain unattached?”

“Indeed.” Sophia laughed. She would not tell Lord Haden that he was too much of a rake for her to ever recommend him as a match to either of her sisters or anyone she considered a friend. Even though she would never play the part of his matchmaker, she liked him very much.

He chuckled. “Well, then. I ought to go.” He returned his hat to his head and retrieved the reins from where they trailed in the snow. “Wouldn’t want to be here if things go badly between Annabelle and Lord Meltenbourne.” He chuckled. “If anyone is looking for me, except either of them, mind you, I’ll be on the pier, waiting for this damn frost to break so I can get on the first barge out. See you in London, then?”

“Indeed.”

Boot thrust into the stirrup, he swung onto his mount. The animal pranced, hooves crushing through snow and ice, and set off a few paces.

“Lord Haden,” she called after him.

He drew on the reins and circled around. “Yes, my lady?”

“We’ll expect you for Christmas Eve at my grandf
ather
’s home.”

“I’ll be there.” He smiled warmly. “Thank you for including me.”

Left alone, Sophia trudged on to the cemetery. Numerous gravestones emerged from the snow, some leaning and others pockmarked by time. At the farthest patch of ground, nearest the forest, stood a bell-shaped mausoleum bearing the words E
LIZABETH.
M
OTHER.
D
AUGHTER.
W
IFE.
A sudden wistfulness weighted Sophia’s heart. The three simple words seemed insufficient to describe the legacy of a remarkable woman whose influence still marked the lives of her sons and her village. At the same time, she prayed she would be blessed enough in life so that her grave marker carried the same three words.

An unexpected blur of color on the steps of the mausoleum caught her eye. At first she thought a bird perched there, but no. Moving closer she found three butter-yellow roses, with a distinctive shading of pink along the edges, almost perfectly preserved by frost.

“There you are.” Boots crunched in snow. “I have been looking everywhere and was about to set off to the village in search of you.”

Sophia turned.

He stood on the path behind her, concern muting his smile. “Is everything well?”

She hoped he couldn’t tell she’d been crying. She smiled. “That was not your first duel, was it?”

“May I decline to answer that question?”

“Yes, you may.” She turned back to Elizabeth’s grave. “Did you leave these beautiful roses for your mother?”

He came to stand beside her. His gaze moved over the monument with reverence. “Roses?”

She pointed to the flowers, not wishing to disrespect the memorial by touching them.

“I don’t know anything about them. Curious. I’m not sure who would have left them.”

“I just saw Haden coming from here. I thought perhaps he left them, but they are frozen to the stone. They must have been here for several days.” Sophia looked at the roses again. “It’s a lovely monument. You haven’t visited since we arrived, have you?”

He traced a leather-encased fingertip in along the letter E at the beginning of his mother’s name.

“Why? Tell me,” she implored softly.

“She’d have been disappointed in the way I lived my life after leaving this place. She raised me to be stronger. She would most certainly have chastened me over the way I handled the loss of our child, leaving you the way I did when you needed me most. Duty to the Crown be damned; that’s what she’d have said.” He offered a little smile, chuckling softly. “Only she wouldn’t have said ‘damned.’ I never once heard her curse.”

“Disappointment is one thing, but she was your mother. It’s not as if she would have stopped loving you, no matter what.”

He looked back at the house, his gaze extending down the vale toward Lacenfleet. “I don’t deserve all this.”

“Camellia House?”

“Everything.”

“Why would you say something like that?”

He looked up at the very top of Elizabeth’s monument. “It is cold,” he said. “You ought to come inside.”

She held back, reluctant. “I don’t wish to eavesdrop on whatever Lord and Lady Meltenbourne have to say to one another. I know I’m a terrible host to say so, but I’ve had rather enough of the both of them for one day.”

“And yet you invited them into our home?” He reached out to tug on an escaped tendril of her hair. “Why?”

Our home.
The words sent a shiver through her, very different from one inspired by the cold. A pleasant sort of shiver that she decided to allow herself. She explained to him Annabelle’s explanation for her dalliances, or rather, her flirtations with other men.

Claxton grunted and frowned. “I don’t much care why she does it as long as they leave us alone. She is a spoiled woman who cares nothing of the damage she inflicts on others. Once we are free of this frost, best neither of them cross my path again.”

“Lady Meltenbourne will find her way. She just needs to know she’s not invisible, that she’s valued as his wife.”

He answered dryly. “She could certainly find other ways to gain notice.”

It would be easy to smile and say nothing more. To simply walk along beside him as if she had nothing more to say. But silence had caused such difficulties between them.

“I don’t want to be like that, Claxton,” she burst out. “Like Annabelle.”

“You?” His eyebrows went up in dismay. “I don’t see how in any circumstance you could ever be compared to her.”