The Duke of Morewether’s Secret (2 page)

His sister. They were having dinner at his sister and brother-in-law’s home. Christian almost laughed at his relief. He’d send a note inviting himself as soon as he got home. The cure he’d been seeking for boredom may have just presented itself in a delectable foreign package.

“I’m happy to escort you to my sister’s,” Christian told her in the most solicitous voice in his arsenal.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Thea told him. A soft smile caressed her lips. “I wouldn’t want to put you to any inconvenience, especially after having already ruined your afternoon.”

“I’ll be there anyway,” he informed her and ignored Anna’s snort. “It will be my absolute pleasure.”

Miss Ashbrook tilted her head and gazed at him. Christian resisted the urge to fidget. He gave her a friendly, but not too hopeful, grin.

He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had held him in such thrall. She searched his face, paused again to meet his gaze. Finally her eyes crinkled at the edges when she bestowed upon him a breath-stealing smile.

“Actually, Your Grace, your interest in me is somewhat surprising. You are not exactly what I’ve come to expect.”

Ah, his reputation preceded him. “What nonsense has our dear Anna been filling your ears?”

Again, Anna snorted. The chit had the indignant snort down to a science. “I assure you, not one lie has passed my lips when I bothered to discuss you at all. Besides, it hardly matters what I have to say about the topic anyway. There are more than enough women in London with stories to tell about you without my contributions.”

Christian gave Anna a nudge with his foot. “Almost none of it true, I can attest.”

“None of it? Really?” Miss Ashbrook raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

“I didn’t say
none
of it. I said
almost none
.” Anna opened her mouth to protest, and he pointed his finger at her. “You hush, little bird.” Anna’s laugh rang gaily over the sides of the carriage and spilled into the street.

Miss Ashbrook teased him with a husky chuckle that only whetted his appetite for more. “I’ve heard a great many stories about you, Your Grace, and I’ll admit, some of them are almost too outlandish to be believed.”

“Do tell,” he encouraged her. He figured he’d challenge some of the more ludicrous tales, freeing the way for her to ignore any warnings she might have collected from gossips.

The lady’s grin was sly. “There was one incident I thought was ridiculous even when I heard it. They say when you ended things with one of your paramours, she was so distraught she burned all your gifts to her in a pyre in your entry hall.”

“Oh, ho.” Anna snorted, and then turned her face away while she tried to control her giggles.

Damn it. The first rumor she brought up and it was more or less true. Well mostly true. “It wasn’t in the entry hall, actually, it was in the garden.”

“Ah.”

“That event was blown way out of proportion. The fire was never that big.”

Anna noted. “It was big enough to catch the big oak aflame.”

Christian glared at the most annoying woman he could possibly have in this carriage at this time and place. She must be reveling in his discomfort. He returned his attention back to Miss Ashbrook. “She burned gowns. That’s why the fire was larger than one would expect.”

“We lost that tree.” Anna clearly was not going be quiet. She claimed to have some sort of attachment to the damn tree, which was absurd. He was certain her fondness only amounted to a way to tease him endlessly about the whole affair.

This time his foot nudged hers a little more firmly, closer to her ankle, and with the toe of his boot. “Obviously, the woman was unhinged. Not long after, she retired to the country.” Christian shot a warning glance at Anna.

I swear to God if she snorts …

“There was also a tale spun involving two nearly naked young women, a goat, and a dip in the Serpentine.”

Christian closed his eyes while he gathered himself. “I was much younger then. Surely you can’t hold a youthful indiscretion against me?” The noises from across the seat sounded as if Anna was choking. If she wasn’t choking now, wait ‘til he got her home.

“I can appreciate the folly of youth,” Miss Ashbrook agreed. Her smile was absent while she seemed to be taking his measure again. “I understand you better than you think, Your Grace.”

He definitely didn’t like the sound of that. “Yes, well, let me prove you wrong. Allow me to escort you to my sister’s home for dinner this evening.”

Miss Ashbrook looked to Anna who shrugged one shoulder and rolled her eyes. Yes, choking her would be a fine, fine thing.

“At the very least, I can’t say the evening would be dull.” Miss Ashbrook extended her hand. “You may collect me at eight o’clock.”

Christian clasped her hand as the carriage rolled to a jerky stop in front of an expansive townhouse near his own. When he helped her down, he took another long glance at her face, a gaze that lingered so long as to be nearly rude. This time, when she held his gaze and curled her lips into a smile, Christian was charmed into thinking he could find his way into her good graces. “Until this evening, then.”

“Ummm.” She nodded to him and waved her farewell to Anna.

He watched her until she disappeared into the house.
Sweet Jesus and all the apostles.
The woman was astounding, fascinating, and he wanted to know everything about her.

“I can’t believe it.” Anna’s voice penetrated his thoughts. “You are completely, absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt smitten with her.”

Christian took the high road and ignored her. The carriage slowed to round the corner to Berkeley Square.

“Oh you are, you
are
,” she continued when he didn’t take her bait.

“Quiet,” he told her in warning.

“She won’t have you, you know.” Anna’s voice softened. “I know you think you’re every woman’s dream, but you’re not this one’s.”

That was precisely his fear.

Chapter Two

She had selected the dress carefully. Her hair looked perfect. A necklace of pearls and diamonds lay shimmering across her chest, innocently drawing the eye to the low cut of her bodice. A quick assessment in the mirror proved what she already knew. She looked stunning, and it was unendingly irritating.

“You are a fool,” she told her reflection. Then she repeated it in Greek in case she wasn’t listening.

Althea Eugenia Ashbrook had not come to London to snag a husband, and certainly not a husband such as the Duke of Morewether. It didn’t matter that he was tall and fit and masculine with beautiful ebony hair and brown eyes. It was of no consequence that he was charming and witty and smiled like a man who knew how to commit all the best sins. She hadn’t been lying when she said she knew him. Perhaps she didn’t know him specifically, but she surely recognized a scoundrel on sight. She could have smelled him coming a mile away. She’d heard countless gossip about him — everything from haughty grand dames warning her away to wistful young ladies sighing dreamily at the thought of a stolen kiss.

She didn’t need a man. Not for anything. Thea reveled in the fact she was completely independent in all things. She had her own name, the one honorable thing her father left her, and her own money, and she was going to use those things to do what her father never had done. Her half-brothers deserved better than what was left to them, and she had every intention of using her father’s money to buy them a better life. This foray into London would serve to find the boys an acceptable school. Any connections she made with London’s upper class would only serve to make their lives easier.

Unconsciously, she fingered an errant curl. She tucked it back in her coiffure and smoothed the hair at the nape of her neck.

The Duke of Morewether’s actions could have been her father’s twenty-five years before. The duke was devilishly handsome, a fact not lost on him, of course, and he had a reputation for having seduced every female since he had left for Eton at thirteen.

Who seduced women at thirteen?

Absurd. Still, women could not stop talking about the man. He hadn’t even been in the city for months, and still, at every single rout, ball, or garden party where three women met, he was a topic of conversation. They discussed him in the retiring rooms. They discussed him in the fitting rooms on Bond Street. By the time she’d finally met him this afternoon, Thea was mortally tired of hearing about him.

Still, she couldn’t deny the man was ludicrously good looking. Although, she’d been lead to believe his powers of seduction were something more impressive than she’d experienced today. It was possible he’d used the tongue-tied ploy to disarm her, but he’d seemed sincere. Even then, he’d almost lured her in, lulled her with his beauty and charming smile.

Thea had chosen two of the most absurd tales she’d heard about him since her arrival in London to test him. As she had suspected, he admitted both to be true.

Yet here she was primping. Damn it all.

She whirled away from the long looking glass and strode across the room.

She had much to accomplish while she was here; people were counting on her. She would make things right, once and for all, and she didn’t have time for beautiful men.

She was
not
in London for a husband, and she’d do well to keep that in mind.

~~~***~~~

Christian decided he’d experienced some form of temporary insanity. There was simply no other explanation for his strange behavior. Never in his life had he been skittish around a woman. Yet with Miss Ashbrook, he’d been tongue-tied. Maybe that’s why he’d been obsessed with her all day. For God’s sake, he’d known her less than an hour. At his sister’s tonight, he’d see that she was just a woman like any other and not worth becoming over-wrought. Still, he was in a nasty mood.

He crossed one leg over the other, careful to avoid catching his mother’s skirts in the close confines of the carriage, and perched an ankle on the opposite knee. He rolled his eyes in irritation at the lack of leg room, the gratingly genial conversation between his mother and Anna, and his own damn stupidity. His mother glanced over at him, curious at the foulness of his mood he supposed, but he ignored her as he had ignored Anna when the damned chit smiled at him as if she knew something.

Christian turned his head and looked out at the inky darkness of St James Street. For the seven-thousandth time that day, he thought of the scourge of gentlemen lecturers everywhere. He closed his eyes briefly and let the memory of her accent roll over him. He opened his eyes before his body shivered with anticipation.

He knew how to solve his problem. After dinner he was going to find a woman with an accent and an amenable disposition, one who liked him — unlike the hellion — and bury himself inside her until she screamed his name. He hadn’t realized how his extended stay in the county had affected him, but that had to be the answer to his preoccupation with Thea. Too much time spent on horses and not enough attention on his baser needs.

Certainly the lady was lovely, but he’d bedded scores of lovely women and never acted so unbelievably green before. Not even when he was green. It wasn’t as if he was unfamiliar with intelligent women. His mother was bright. His sister was smart and witty. While he might be cursed by his sister’s best friend, Anna, and her damned insightful nature, she would never be called anything less than sharp. So, he wasn’t intimidated by the lovely lady’s brain.

Actually, maybe that held the clue to his madness after all. He couldn’t think of any other woman of his acquaintance who would have the nerve to stand up to a learned scholar even when she knew he was wrong. Not one who would stand up to an orator in private, much less in front of an entire assembly full of gentlemen peers. The woman was nervy besides being intelligent.

And beautiful.

Yet it didn’t matter — lightskirt or cuckolding wife — he was going to knock a woman tonight and get his mind back in order.

Miss Ashbrook’s butler showed them to the front parlor to await his mistress. Christian refused to sit on any of the spindly-legged chairs arranged about the artfully decorated room. The favored
ton
décor inspirations were not intended for big men. Instead he strolled about the perimeter of the room taking notice of the various pieces of classical Greek
objets d’art
. One piece, a black and red vase of impeccable quality, grabbed his attention. He was just bending to examine it more closely because surely what he thought he saw couldn’t be right, when the melodic tones of Miss Ashbrook’s voice wafted across the room followed immediately by a perfumed scent Christian would associate with her for the rest of his days. Once again, the lady proved she was no typical English maiden with nothing more than the unusual scent she chose. Not a soft violet or even a sweet lemon verbena for Althea. No, her scent was bold but not at all overpowering. Conjuring visions of teal blue ocean and fields of Cypress trees, Christian could almost smell the Mediterranean Sea and feel the breeze that brought her scent to him.

When did I get so fanciful?
He marshaled his composure and turned when she greeted them. His face wore the expected mask of fashionable boredom he hoped fooled everyone because it didn’t fool him.

“I’m very proud of that piece,” Miss Ashbrook said, and gestured to the vase he had been admiring. “It’s one of my best rescues so far.”

Christian dragged his eyes from her and back to the large vessel perched on the center of a table. He took in the figures depicted in stark red against the black background. He cleared his throat. “It’s a very … unusual … in the home of a lady … of good reputation, that is.”

Anna had crept closer when he wasn’t paying attention and, when she peeked around him, she let out a gasp and a reflexive giggle. Served her right, and he hoped she was completely scandalized.

Miss Ashbrook, however, was not scandalized. Her laugh joined Anna’s, husky and low in contrast with Anna’s higher pitched trill. “Actually, I think I keep it in here, in this sitting room, solely for the purpose of shocking the
ton
.”