Never Desire a Duke (One Scandalous Season) (5 page)

The blood drained from Vane’s cheeks. Her heart pounded so hard it hurt. But she knew if she had not died from heartache after losing their child and after he had abandoned her, she would not expire from it now.

“Sophia—” he uttered, his voice thick.

She lifted a silencing hand. “Lady Darch never stopped smiling, the whole time she spoke, but I suspect she was quite heartbroken that you and I had married.” She looked Claxton directly in the eye. “Which is why I tried very hard to forget the whole unpleasant matter.”

He held both of his palms open to her. “I never spoke to her again after you and I were betrothed. I swear it.”

Sophia nodded, her hands working the ribbon of her cap. “I believe you, Claxton, and that’s what I believed then as well, which is why I never mentioned her to you. I forgave you Lady Darch. After all, it wasn’t as if I believed you to be a virgin when we married.”

“Then what?” he demanded quietly. “Why tell me this now?”

Sophia blinked. “Once we married, I was very satisfied being your wife. More than satisfied. I was
happy
.” Her voice failed on the word, and she had to clear her throat to continue. “I think you know that to be true. I believe you were happy as well?”

“I was, yes,” he answered.

“I fear, though, her ladyship’s words always stayed somewhere in the back of my mind, like an ugly little whisper, which is why I overreacted when I accidentally opened that letter from the actress.”

Claxton’s chin jerked.

She closed her eyes, pressing forward. “After we lost the baby, you were gone so much, especially at night. You seemed so miserable in our marriage, as if you didn’t like me very much anymore.”

“That’s not true.” He shook his head. “It was never true.”

“Then that French letter fell out of your pocket.”

“Received in jest from an old military friend,” he provided in a controlled voice. Yet his knuckles, where they gripped the mantel, whitened. “A bawdy bit of male humor you were never intended to see.”

Sophia frowned and glanced at her lap. “I’m certain that’s what every husband says to his wife upon her discovering something untoward in his pocket.”

“It’s the truth.”

“You must understand that by then numerous rumors had already reached my ears—”

“
Rumors
,” Claxton hissed.

“That you’d been seen in Hyde Park in a parked carriage, passing time with Lady Bamber.”

“She is—an old friend.” His lips grew thin and white, and his nostrils flared. “Passing time. Mere conversation. Nothing more—”

“Mrs. Burke. Lady Dixon.”

His eyelids fluttered, and his teeth clenched. “If you would just—”

“There were more rumors, of course, and they didn’t stop after you accepted your diplomatic assignment. I could recount them here for you to deny, to talk them away, but my heart and my mind are weary of it all.” Sophia gave a little shrug.

“Weary of the rumors or me?”

She looked at him directly. “I only know what my old nanny, Mrs. Hudson, used to say, that to every rumor there is a kernel of truth.”

“You would justify my condemnation with an…
an idiom
?” His eyes widened.

“A very wise idiom by my way of thinking. Perhaps I was naïve when we married, but I’m not anymore.” Her voice softened. “Besides, none of that really matters. The rumors, those women—”

“They don’t?” he inquired hoarsely.

“No.” Perhaps it ought to make her feel good and satisfied to see him so discomposed by her words, but it didn’t. She examined his face, feeling too old and too wise for her years. “What matters most is that when I needed you to be my husband, to tell me everything would be all right—”

“Yes, I know—” His blue eyes, in that moment, became black and empty. “The baby. It’s just that—”

“You left me and went on to live your life without me. As if the baby and I meant nothing at all to you.”

Claxton opened his mouth as if to speak.

Sophia stood from the settee. Leaving her cap there, with its shining ribbons trailing onto the floor, she walked the edge of the carpet. “I don’t think I can ever forgive you for that. What a strange and terrible thing to say, being that it’s almost Christmas, but it’s the truth. It’s wedged here, like a piece of broken glass in my heart, and I don’t think the hurt will ever go away.”

He moved toward her. “Sophia—”

“Please.” She stepped back, shaking her head. “I’m not finished.”

Now that she’d gone this far, she felt strong enough to say the rest. He’d left her no choice.

“While you were away, I passed a lot of my time alone, thinking.” She straightened her shoulders to signify her resolve. “It is why I came here tonight. After seeing you, I knew I needed to make a decision, and everyone would have such different opinions, you see. My mother. My sisters. Grandfather. I needed to ruminate, to be alone and make my own decision, without being pulled in different directions.”

His face hardened into stone, but at least, thankfully, he remained silent and allowed her to speak.

“And then I found you here with Lady Meltenbourne, who had already quite humiliated me tonight in front of all my family and friends, asking everyone your whereabouts. At my grandfather’s party, no less.” She shrugged. “Even if she is not your lover, I don’t believe I’ll ever get the image out of my head. I’m not that sort of wife.”

Claxton did not say anything. He only stood there, his eyes burning like cinders.

“It would only be a matter of time until there was a similar misunderstanding or difficulty to drive us apart. As things stand, I don’t see that there is any way to return to the way things were before. I know what I am about to say may shock you, but I can think of no other solution.”

His gaze lost its heat to be replaced with an icy gleam.

Her heart pounded so that she could barely catch her breath. He only stared at her, making each word a challenge to speak.

“If you care about me at all, Claxton, one little bit, I want…well, I want a separation.”

At hearing the words from Sophia’s lips, the earth opened up and he fell through into a burning crevice of hell, a place he remembered well. Somehow, amid the flames, he heard it—his own quick inhalation of breath sharply audible in the silence.

“No.”

It was all he could think. No. Goddamn it, no.

“I thought you might say that,” she replied quietly, looking down at her hands. “But you see, I have something to offer in exchange for your agreement.”

“Don’t, Sophia—” He knew with a dark and sudden certainty what she would say. What she would offer to gain his compliance.

“A child.”

He closed his eyes. “Damn you.”

She cleared her throat. “In exchange for—a child—you will grant me a separation.”

For a long moment, he seethed in silence.

“A boy?” he gritted out through clenched teeth. “An heir?”

Her lashes lowered against her cheeks, something he’d always found painfully alluring. “A child,” she said firmly. “Whatever its sex may be.”

He’d never felt an obligation to continue the Claxton line. But yes, he had wanted children with Sophia desperately. The loss of their first had devastated him to his soul, and he had grieved each day since for that baby, just as strongly as he’d grieved the loss of his wife’s affection.

Now she offered him one of the two things he wanted most in the world, a daughter or a son, in exchange for the other—herself. Instinct commanded that he go to her and fall on his knees and beg her to withdraw her abominable proposal. To carry her upstairs and make love to her until she loved him back.

Yet fear that she would still reject him paralyzed him, and he did nothing. Instead, all his hurt and anger spilled out from his throat.

“Do I have any choice?” he snapped.

“My grandfather’s lawyers have assured me the separation will occur if I so wish it, regardless of your cooperation. So the choice is yours. We will separate, either with a child…or without.”

“A
formal
separation with all the legal and binding implications,” he whispered.

“A complete severance of our marital obligations.”

“I shall have to think. Given the circumstances, perhaps there should be no child.” He forced a casual shrug and with the next words sought to wound her just as deeply as she’d wounded him. “Perhaps, as long as we’re undertaking to create a scandal, I might simply prefer a divorce. To be truly free of you. To marry and have children with someone else.”

“A divorce?” she blurted, eyes widening. “But I didn’t commit the adultery.”

Parliament, as a rule, granted divorces only to husbands who proved adultery by their wives. There were only very rare exceptions.

“Neither did I,” he ground out. “But the truth doesn’t seem to signify with you. The endeavor would simply require that we make up some salacious stories about you. The more the better. Repeat them enough, and they’re as good as true, eh, Sophia? Then we can have our divorce and truly be done with each other.”

“
Claxton
,” Sophia exclaimed, visibly mortified.

“Then a Scottish divorce, perhaps, which allows for a husband’s adultery as a cause of action.” He pretended to ponder the idea, tapping his finger against his lips. “We’ve the estate in Inverness to establish residency. I resided there for nearly a month after…well, I’m certain your investigator can find some local doxy to say she was my—”

“I believe a separation will suffice,” she blurted coldly. “You’re all bluster. I suspect you want a child as badly as I do, not the scandal and nastiness of a divorce.”

He laughed into the shadows, a bitter sound. Of course, she was right. He wanted a child with Sophia, or no child at all. She had him by the bollocks.

This night had gone nothing at all like he had planned. It had been his intention in coming to Camellia House to confess every one of the allegations she had spoken—except for Lady Darch, which of course had occurred before their betrothal—to ask her forgiveness for giving her cause to question his commitment to their marriage. But the same sins, when described by her innocent lips, had become infinitely more indefensible than he’d allowed himself to believe. How could he have blundered so badly and caused such damage to the trust between them that she now despised him so completely? He had no idea how to take her pain away or how to return their world to center. At the same time, he felt so
angry
at her. He’d harbored such hope. He could not help but feel betrayed.

Sophia fled to the window and pushed aside the curtain to stare into the night, so she would not have to look at him anymore, he knew.

“What a miserable Christmas this has turned out to be,” she announced.

Christmas. His mother had always made their Christmases special. When the duchess Elizabeth had lived within these walls, Camellia House had been draped in greenery, warmth, and light, nothing like the cold, cavernous shell that surrounded them now.

For years after her death, he’d not known a true Christmas. His father did not celebrate the occasion, finding such observances overly sentimental and gauche. Later, while an officer in the army, he had attended the occasional Christmas ball or supper, but afterward had retired to his quarters alone.

The only Christmas in recent memory where he’d felt included in a family and at peace with the world had been last Christmas, which he’d spent at Wolverton’s country estate with Sophia and her family. A magical memory. How had he allowed things to fall apart so completely since that time?

He stared at her back. She stood proudly, her head erect and her shoulders back, distant and unattainable. From out of nowhere, a torch flamed into blazing life inside his chest, one born of desire so intense and hot he knew he must do whatever possible to claim her again. To ease his soul-deep need. If only for one last time.

“Very well,” he muttered. “I will agree to your demand.”

She did not grant him so much as a glance over her shoulder, but remained motionless. “I rather thought you would.”

From outside, the sound of the wind arose, battering the house. The walls and floors creaked. The windows rattled.

“Since you seem to be holding all the cards,” he said, “where do you propose we go from here?”

W
e’ll return to London first thing in the morning. I’d prefer that you take residence at your club.”

Elbow on the mantel, Vane pinched his fingertips against the bridge of his nose, an attempt to soothe the pounding inside his head. She was throwing him out of his own house?

“How do you suppose, then,” he demanded harshly, “that I get you with child?”

For a long time she stood in silence, back to him. Would she turn around and tell him they could still step back from this cliff? That separating wasn’t what she wanted? Did he even want her to change her mind, with the trust between them so irrevocably destroyed?

She turned, the suddenness of the motion parting her scarlet redingote below her waist to reveal a lace froth of petticoats and the pointed tips of embroidered green mules. “We will come to a mutual agreement as to when you will visit.”

Though buttoned up tight, all the way to her high velvet collar, she’d never been more alluring than now. Never more beautiful and composed. He almost hated her for it.

“But first,” she said, “I want the documents drawn and all agreements in writing.”

Claxton blinked, dismayed. “What other agreements are there?”

“That I will retain Sylventon Place and the income from that estate, as I brought that property into our marriage—”

Claxton grunted in assent.

“And that the child, once born, will live with me to be raised by me and my family.”

Her words came like a cudgel to the back of his head.

“No.” He shook his head, a snarl forming on his lips. “I don’t agree to that, not completely.”

“You will,” she answered calmly, hovering at the edge of the candlelight.

He felt dragged in the dirt. Drawn and quartered.

“You’ve got this all worked out in your mind already, don’t you?” he growled.

She responded in a quiet voice. “I had a lot of time alone to think about it.”

He shook his head. “Again, I won’t agree.”

“We will work out all the details then.” She circled round the end of the settee.

“Whatever,” he snapped.

From the cushion, she collected her valise, her cap, and the oil lamp and stood like a woman preparing for an arduous journey. “Unless there’s something else, I am very tired and shall retire.”

Only she didn’t leave. She hovered there, staring at him.

“What do you expect?” he barked. “That I should bid you a good night?”

It was not a good night. It was a terrible night.

She looked him up and down. Her lip twitched as if she found him lacking. “I don’t expect anything from you, Claxton. I haven’t for a very long time.”

With a glare, she disappeared down the corridor and up the stairs. The glow of the lamp dimmed with her every step, until he was abandoned to deeper darkness, with only a dying fire by which to see. Her footsteps grew faint, and at last there came the sound of a door closing.

The sound gutted him. Only in the ensuing silence did he acknowledge what he’d done. He had agreed to a legal separation from the only woman he had ever loved.

There were men on the battlefield who when faced with overwhelming force chose to blast their brains out rather than be torn apart by their enemy. In one fell moment, he’d done much the same, murdering his dreams rather than exposing himself to failure. He’d never been a coward in life or in war, but when faced with the disdain in his wife’s bewitching green eyes, he had run like a callow boy.

He muttered an oath and said to the portrait over the mantel, “Are you quite happy?”

The painted countenance responded with a sneer of disdain, as his father had so often done in life. Of course, anyone else looking at the portrait would have noted only a dignified mien, the same expression emulated in countless portraits of important men. But Vane saw it. The artist had captured the dark glimmer, there in the farthest reaches of those steely blue eyes. Likely, his father had been an insufferable ass during each sitting. Oh yes, it was there. The elder lordship’s general attitude of contempt for all things that breathed.

Throwing open one cabinet and then another, he searched for a bottle of something,
anything
strong and numbing. As a rule, he did not drink excessively. He mistrusted the recklessness that spirits inspired, the looseness of tongue, preferring instead to remain always in complete control.

Not tonight. Tonight he wanted to get ape drunk. His search yielded no such paradise, and the wine cellar was most certainly locked and the key in Mrs. Kettle’s possession down in the village. Though less desirable in the given moment, he did, however, find another lamp and a store of oil.

With the lamp lighting his way, he followed the path Sophia had taken, noting the waning light seeping out from under the door of the ducal bedchamber,
his
rightful domain. God, he swore he could smell her fragrance and even hear the sensual brush of velvet against her skin. He felt like a feral animal, left out in the cold, when he ought to be there in the bed beside her. How would he get a moment’s rest this close to her? With this shameful
need
even now burning in his blood? Instead he sullenly sought out the room he’d occupied as a boy.

Everything was familiar here, each panel and stone etched into his memory. There were his books. His drawings. Even his collection of miniature soldiers painted by his own boyish hand, waiting just where he’d left them on a table beside the window. But there were no linens or pillows. There wasn’t even a mattress on the bed, just bare ropes. A glance into the other rooms—
not hers
—provided a similar result, and all hope of a comfortable night fell away. He returned to the great room.

He’d passed many a night in less gracious circumstances, on cold earth, unyielding stone, or creaking, damp boards, believing anything was better than a bed provided by his father’s tainted largesse.

Though narrow and shorter than he by a good foot, the settee would more than suit for the next few hours.

Sophia stepped back from the fire she’d only just managed, after numerous failed attempts, to coax to life. Accustomed since birth to the skilled assistance of servants, she couldn’t recall the last time she’d built her own. That she’d successfully accomplished the task gave her some satisfaction. If she could build a fire, she could certainly survive her future alone.

A strong wind battered the house, rattling the shutters. The cavernous room, despite its smart insulation of wood paneling, heavy draperies, and wall hangings, remained as frigid as her husband’s winter-blue eyes. The fire, at least, made the chill bearable. Even so, she crossed her arms at her waist, a pitiful self-embrace, fearing she would never be warm again.

Claxton had agreed to her demand. She ought to feel triumphant or at least satisfied, but she didn’t.

Behind her stood a wonderful old estate bed, made up with fine linens and thick velvet curtains, the latter of which she would not draw completely closed out of fear she would be unaware if the old house caught on fire and burned down around her. She craved the oblivion of sleep, but despite her weariness, with each passing moment, the tangle of thoughts in her head only grew more out of hand.

In some small way, she was grateful to be at Camellia House and alone in this unfamiliar room. There had never been a time in her twenty-two years when her life’s biggest decisions were not decided by family committee. By her parents, or her grandf
ather
, or the lively chattering pair that were her sisters, or some combination thereof. All her life, she’d welcomed as much as suffered the constant barrage of remarks and opinions that determined her path.

She’d rather overexaggerated to Claxton her grandf
ather
’s involvement in the matter of their separation. She and the earl had never discussed the possibility of a separation or the involvement of attorneys. When she returned to London, the news might come as a shock to Wolverton and, indeed, the rest of her family.

She couldn’t even bring herself to imagine their reactions. They loved her, yes. There was not a doubt in her mind that they would support her through anything, but still, a formal separation from Claxton, even a private one, would mean some degree of social disgrace for her and the associated repercussions. If Claxton received an invitation to a party or ball or dinner, then she would not and neither would any member of her family.

Though she believed her family possessed the stature to weather such a storm, she had no wish to ruin her sisters’ upcoming season. For young women whose very futures depended on a successful match, any scandal could be calamitous. No matter how lovely and charming Daphne and Clarissa were or how besotted their suitors, if any parent or adviser caught a whiff of disgrace, no offer would be forthcoming.

Thankfully Claxton had agreed to endeavor toward having another child, which if all went accordingly, would delay their public scandal for up to a year, or…perhaps longer. A flush rose to her cheeks, imagining how many times they might have to attempt conception. Even now she could not comprehend separating herself from the emotion that their lovemaking had always inspired.

Attired in a flannel sleeping gown, Sophia filled the bed warmer with coals and after situating the brass pan, climbed onto the enormous feather mattress. The floor above her creaked, sounding almost like ghostly footsteps. In that regard, the knowledge of Claxton’s presence gave her comfort.

Her heart whispered his name. Her hand curled into the linens, and a sigh broke from her lips.

No
. He had forced her to this.

And yet…she’d never felt more lonely.

And on that sad little thought, the tears commenced.

The silent presence of the old house embraced her, making no judgments or efforts to dissect her thoughts, her fears, or her motivations. Nor did it chastise her when she wished, against all good sense, that Claxton—the most colossal ass on God’s green earth—was lying here beside her.

Hours later, Vane sat up and rubbed his hands over his face. His breath puffed out before him, visible in the morning chill. A quick glance at the distant window showed the glass to be completely glazed with frost.

He had not slept well.

Some time before dawn, the fire burned out. Not only that, but one of the settee’s damned legs, located just above his head, had abruptly failed. The sudden movement had jammed the top of his head against the armrest. Too exhausted to make any effort to repair either situation, he had passed the remainder of the early-morning hours uncomfortably cold, hovering between sleep and awareness, continually conscious of the world’s lopsided slant.

Furthermore, the hellish scene that had taken place between him and Sophia the night before had played continually, even in his dreams—or rather nightmares. Nightmares, because to his horror he’d not been himself at all, but rather his father. If only he could have gotten fuddled and slept like the dead. He would have much preferred wakening to a shattering headache than this soul-deep crater in his chest.

Having slept fully dressed in all but his cravat, his foray into the world required only a push up from the settee and a brief shamble through the vestibule out the front door. There, his lungs frosted over in one breath.

A glance to his watch showed that, surprisingly, the day had gone well past noon.

Fog and snow blanketed the countryside to an extent he’d not anticipated. Only the tops of the nearby hedges remained visible, indicating an overnight fall of several feet. Having no wish to venture thigh deep into the stuff, he balanced himself at the edge of the ice-covered porch and unfastened his breeches. There, he relieved himself against a brass plaque affixed to the wall of the house, one bearing the Claxton crest. A smile curled his lips. As a boy, the same rebellious act had given him no small measure of delight.

Returned inside, he took a moment to repair the settee. He then sought out the kitchen, where he hoped to find a store of wood to renew the fire. Rounding the corner to the corridor, he came face-to-face with Sophia. The sight of her hit him like a cannonball to the chest.

She froze, her lips parting but saying nothing, as if he’d startled her as well. Her face was small and pale above the collar of her indigo gown, and weariness shadowed her eyes. Her hair fell in dark waves around her shoulders—all in all, a sight so lovely his gut twisted with want.

Sophia,
here
, in these simple surroundings that whispered his memories past, became someone else. Someone more. God, he missed her.

“Good morning,” he half murmured, half growled, determined to win the first contest of the day, the one for most-civilized-spouse-seeking-a-formal-separation. After all, if they were going to proceed at some mutually negotiated point in the future to conceive a child, it might prove helpful if they remained, at the least, on cordial speaking terms.

She did not return his greeting. “The pump is frozen, but I melted some snow. There is a basin, if you’d like to wash.”

She indicated the door to the scullery and continued on through the open door of the kitchen, a shadowy winter goddess. A stranger forevermore.

Vane washed, and when he was finished, he examined himself in the small looking glass above the basin. A stark-faced man with disheveled hair and stormy eyes stared back. God, he looked frightening and so much like his father. He splashed another round of water on his face and ran the dampened fingers of both hands through his hair.

Claxton rejoined Sophia, strangely unable to stay away. Soon she would be gone from his life forever, hidden behind a wall of go-betweens and legally binding rules of engagement. To his shame, he craved with a sudden and surprising intensity whatever togetherness, whatever memories, these final hours would bring. Two narrow windows illuminated the kitchen with waning winter light. A delicious heat emanated from the stove, which he paused over to warm his water-chilled hands.

When he moved aside, she bent over the grate, peeking into a metal teapot. “There’s tea. That’s all, I’m afraid.”