The Heart of a Duke (36 page)

Her mother’s high-pitched screeching
effectively buried whatever it was she was prattling on
about.

“
Where is she?” a deep baritone
thundered from somewhere within the house.

Aldora leapt to her feet. Her heart raced in
her chest as Michael’s brother dissolved into an afterthought of
her periphery.

She raced to the door and collided hard
against the wall of Michael’s chest. Her spectacles popped off her
nose and skittered across the floor. His image blurred.

A watery smile turned her lips. She didn’t
need her spectacles to know he was there, to sense the emotion that
emanated from every fiber of his masculine form.

“
Michael,” she
breathed.

Chapter Ten

Michael bent down and retrieved Aldora’s
spectacles, and with an informality that set Lady Adamson off on
another wave of caterwauling, he placed them back on her freckled
nose.

“
Aldora,” he murmured.

His attention shifted to the familiar figure
that rose from the ridiculously small chintz sofa. The same
smoldering rage, jealousy, possessiveness that had fueled Michael’s
footsteps and led him to do something as rash as invading Lady
Adamson’s home, filled him when he spied his brother standing
there, his face a blank, flat mask. Emotion raced through Michael’s
being until his fingers twitched from the intensity of
it.

He should have respected Aldora’s desire for a
respectable match but she was his and if he didn’t fight for her,
he would be forever filled with a regret that would eventually
destroy him.

“
I—”

“
You can’t marry him.”

Through the thick glass of her spectacles,
Aldora’s eyes went wide.

“
I know.”

She wasn’t the conventional beauty he’d always
favored. There was far too much unique in her heart-shaped face.
But it was a face that was more precious than any other and he
could not live without her.

“
She most certainly can,” the
Countess cried out, and then promptly collapsed into a conveniently
located frayed chair. She waved a hand in front of her face as
though she desperately fought to hold onto
consciousness.

Michael stroked the backs of his fingers
alongside Aldora’s satin cheek. Her eyes fluttered closed. “So
beautiful,” he murmured. “I do not want to share you. “

“
You don’t have to.”

“
I…”

It took a moment for Aldora’s response to
penetrate his single-minded focus. He’d arrived here in a rage,
convinced that he would have to battle for her hand, and now he was
totally at sea.

“
I love you,” she whispered. “I
don’t want to marry your brother. Or anyone else.” She shot a quick
glance over her shoulder. “My apologies, my lord.”

St. James waved his hand, a bemused look on
his face. “No apologies necessary.”

Aldora returned her gaze to Michael. “I
realized as you left me in the park…”

“
You were in the park with him?”
Mother screeched.

Aldora went on as though there’d been no
interruption. “I realized that I want you, Michael. For two years,
I’ve thought only of my brother and sisters. And perhaps it is
selfishness on my part, but I believe with you by my side I can do
anything. Even save my siblings from societal ruin.”

“
You can’t,” the countess barked.
“You can’t stop the gossips. No one will wed your sisters. No
one!”

Michael glared the countess into
silence.

Aldora’s throat seemed to work reflexively,
and Michael knew what this decision was costing her. What manner of
young woman would deal so courageously with all that she’d borne on
her small shoulders?

“
You’ll no longer have to worry
about your father’s debts,” his brother intoned from across the
room.

Three pairs of eyes flew in his
direction.

St. James dusted his hands across his already
immaculate coat. “I’ve seen to his debt. There is nothing standing
between you and Michael’s happiness.”

The countess gasped, and for what Michael
would venture was the first time in the garrulous woman’s life, she
was left speechless.

Aldora shook her head. “You…I…you
can’t.”

“
I can and I did. Consider it a
gift for your upcoming nuptials.”

Michael looked away, besieged by the same
panic that had driven him to the Countess of Adamson’s doorstep.
His brother could make the financial difficulties disappear.
Michael himself could have done that, but neither of them could
erase the scandal of Michael’s past.

Aldora slipped her fingers into his hands and
gave a firm squeeze. “I love you,” she whispered, when he finally
returned his stare to her. “With you at my side, I feel like I can
do anything.”

Emotion filled Michael’s throat, making speech
difficult. He knew what she spoke of. When Aldora was near, he was
filled with a lightness that had been extinguished the day he’d
dueled and been banished to Wales. He’d never imagined he’d feel
alive and hopeful after those days. He’d never imagined he would
smile again or laugh…or find love.

“
I love you,” he said, his voice
rough to his own ears. He tipped her chin up. “Lady Aldora, if you
wed me you’ll make me the most—”

“
If you don’t say yes, you are a
daft ninny of a girl!”

This time the interruption came from the three
interlopers at the entrance of the doorway. Michael imagined the
young lady with honey blonde locks and familiar brown eyes was in
fact a sister.

“
She’ll marry you,” the other
young lady, with equally honey blonde locks called out.

Aldora choked back a laugh and touched her
fingers to Michael’s chin in a like motion. “I do not need anyone
to tell me that I want to wed you. You and only you. I thought I
needed a powerful peer, Michael, but what I needed was more than a
duke.” She leaned up and whispered close to his ear. Her breath
fanned his cheek. “I needed you.”

Epilogue

Aldora pushed her spectacles higher up on her
nose and with a frown, scanned the area.

“
Perhaps she is not coming.”
Michael’s supposition interrupted her search.

She glanced up at this tall, commanding man
who was now her husband. They had been married in a quiet ceremony
two months ago, and surprisingly, there’d been less censure from
Society and more curiosity at the sudden match. “She’ll be here,”
Aldora said with not just a small bit of confidence.

Michael looked like he wanted to disagree but
instead gave a nod. He tightened his grip on her hand. The pad of
his thumb brushed the sensitive skin at the inset of her wrist,
causing her pulse to flutter. Her eyes slid closed. Just his
faintest touch could drive away all coherent thoughts, all common
sense. And at any other time, she would have embraced the seclusion
of the empty riding path, and turn herself over to that hot,
hungering gleam in his eyes. This day was different,
however.

Aldora was a woman with a mission.

Her free hand tightened around the heart
pendant that she’d taken off the day of her wedding ceremony. It
was time to pass it on to another who needed the talisman and the
magic it brought with it. Alison had been quite clear over the
years on her beliefs in anything magic.

The soft tread of slippers kicking up gravel
brought Aldora’s attention forward.

She leaned up and pressed a kiss on Michael’s
cheek. “Wait here. I’ll be just a moment.”

Michael caressed her cheek with the palm of
his hand, his expression indicating that he wanted to keep her
forever at his side. Her heart warmed with the peace of his
steadfast love as she went on to greet Alison.

Aldora waved as she drew closer. “I thought
you might not come.”

Alison’s lips tipped up in a half-smile. “And
risk the wrath of Valera when you told her I passed on the
pendant?”

Aldora studied her friend’s serious
countenance. She pressed the pendant into Alison’s palm. “I know
you don’t believe in magic. You believe in a world based on science
and reason but I know you, Alison. Deep down you believe. Deep down
you’ve seen the rest of us find love, and you must trust that this
will bring you to your love. Do not point your eyes to the heavens
like that, Ali. It’s true.”

Her friend examined the pendant in her fingers
with something akin to a scientific study of the metal. She turned
it over hesitantly in her hands, as if she were weighing the heart
and chain.

“
I know you believe, Ali,” Aldora
said.

Alison paused, and then slipped the heart
inside the front pocket of her cloak. “I’ll take it because as you
said, Valera would have my head if I didn’t carry on this foolish
nonsense, but I don’t believe, Aldora.”

Aldora hesitated. Who was she to debate Alison
on her reservations for the delicate trinket given to them by a
gypsy those years ago? Hadn’t she herself been possessed of the
same jaded doubt when Valera had passed the necklace onto her?
Leaning over, she kissed Alison on the cheek.

Her friend would find out. All in due
time…

About Christi
Caldwell

Christi Caldwell blames Judith McNaught's
"Whitney, My Love!" for luring her into the world of historical
romance. While sitting in her graduate school apartment at the
University of Connecticut, Christi decided to set aside her notes
and pick up her laptop to try her hand at romance. She believes the
most perfect heroes and heroines have imperfections, and she rather
enjoys torturing them before crafting them a well deserved happily
ever after! 

Christi makes her home in southern Connecticut
where she spends her time writing her own enchanting historical
romances, teaching history, and being a full-time wife and
mother!

She is the author of "Winning a
Lady's Heart", "A Season of Hope" and "Forever Betrothed, Never the
Bride".  You can connect with her at
www.christicaldwellauthor.com
or
on Facebook (Christi Caldwell Author).

Robin Delany

Chapter One

September 1810

The female body was a curious
thing. It reacted to an attractive man in the most unusual way: the
pulse quickened and the breathing as well, things swelled and
reddened with the increase of the blood’s flow.
Newton’s apple
! It was almost as if
one had run a footrace—though far more tingly in certain places.
Lady Alison Griffith’s cheeks went warm and she glanced around the
library as if one of the servants, who rushed around ensuring the
comfort of the newly arriving guests, might possibly have heard the
thought.

When no one stood in the doorway gaping, she
turned and continued taking note of her reaction to the arrival of
the handsome scientist her father often invited to parties as
entertainment for the guests, and himself. The scientist in
question, Jonathan Foster, had just emerged from Papa’s coach, the
muscles of his broad shoulders bulging during his descent and
causing her ardent physical reaction. He shielded his face from the
rain as he strode toward the house. She tried hard not to notice
the things a proper miss shouldn’t be aware of—his strong jaw, his
wide chest, those warm eyes that shimmered when he spoke about who
knew what. There were times she couldn’t hear a word he was saying
for the pounding of her heart, but he had such a handsome way of
putting it. It really wasn’t ladylike, but in trying not to pay
attention to his finer attributes, she only noticed them all the
more.

With the wondrous reaction of her body, and
her heart, it tore her apart each time he had proved indifferent
during the three years he had been attending her father’s biannual
parties. The last time he’d been unable to say more than two words
to her.

“
Alison.”

She jumped, a coarse “yeep” flying from her
throat before she could stop it, and she whirled about to see Papa
striding across the blue and gold patterns of the thick
carpet.