When Seducing A Duke (14 page)

Grey wasn’t quite drunk, but he was far from sober when Rose entered his study later that evening. His heart stuttered at the sight of her, but his head…his head couldn’t take any more.

“I’ve been drinking,” he warned her, just in case his sprawled posture and missing cravat wasn’t enough indication. “And I refuse to dance this ridiculous dance with you any more tonight.”

“May I have a drink with you?”

He glanced up. She stood beside the sofa where he half sat, half lay. She looked like someone who’d just lost her best friend or puppy or something equally as tragic.

He sat up. “Of course.” Never mind that it wasn’t proper. Who the hell cared? They were well past proper. He was simply trying to hold on to sane.

She poured herself a substantial glass of sherry and took a seat on the chair nearest him. He sat quietly, nursing the remainder of whiskey in his glass while she took several sips from her own.

“Do you remember my come-out ball?” she asked after a few minutes.

“Of course.” And he did. “I remember telling you that you looked lovely in pink.”

She smiled. “You danced the first dance with me so I wouldn’t have to dance with Papa.”

“You were afraid the other girls would laugh at you if you danced with your father.”

“They didn’t laugh at me for dancing with you.”

“No.” He chuckled and took a drink. “I wager they didn’t.”

Rose sighed. “They thought you were so scandalous, you know. All night I had girls coming up to me wanting to know about you. I felt very important.”

He saluted her with his glass. “Glad to be of service.”

“I think I fell a little bit in love with you that night.”

Grey choked on a mouthful of whiskey. Coughing, he cursed himself for being stupid enough to relax his guard with her. “Rose…”

She held up her hand. “I’m not telling you this to make you uncomfortable, Grey. I wanted to tell you that you were a knight to me that evening—a knight on a big white horse. I didn’t know much about your reputation, all I knew was that you made me feel grown-up.”

He didn’t know what to say. “And then?”

She smiled, but her lips trembled. “And then I caught one of the older ladies looking at me like she’d cheerfully rip my heart out of my chest and feed it to me. I couldn’t understand why she disliked me when I didn’t even know who she was.”

“Do you understand now?” Why did he ask questions to which he did not want to know the answer?

“I do.” She took another sip of sherry. Her lips were wet and inviting and he stared at them with such an intense longing in his gut he could weep. Drunken, crying men were always so very attractive.

“It was because of you,” she continued, fixing him with an expression caught somewhere between distaste and pity—a mortifying combination. “She was jealous because you danced with me and not with her, I’m sure of it.”

“Did you ever find out who she was?”

“Lady DuBarrie.”

“Helena,” he said with a rueful smile. “She was unhappy in her marriage, I convinced her I could make her happy.”

“Did you?”

He met her gaze with a hard one of his own. “Very. But not for as long as she would have liked. Greener pastures and all that.” It was so difficult to look her in the eye and admit these things, but he would not shy from the truth. He owed her that. “Yes, she would have despised you for capturing my attention. And she would have hated you for being younger and more beautiful.”

“I remember her being a beautiful woman.”

“Only on the outside—like so many of us.” Then he laughed bitterly, fingers going to his scar. “Well, not me. Not anymore, eh?”

She ignored that, dear girl. He couldn’t stand her pity on top of his own. “Was she the one who tried to drown herself?”

“No. That was someone else.” No need to mention names, not when the lady in question was still out in society. “Hard to believe that one man could cause so much trouble, isn’t it?”

“It’s difficult to believe it was you. You were so good to me.”

He took a drink. “Only because you were the daughter of a friend. Were you anyone else I would have plucked you that first season.” Just how much honesty did he owe her? Because surely this was a bit much.

She didn’t look nearly as disgusted as she should have. She merely looked…disappointed. That was worse. Necessary, but worse.

“But you’re not that man anymore,” she reminded him.

Grey smiled, but there was little humor in it. “Who’s to say? I really don’t want to find out. Do you?”

She looked away, a frown knitting her delicate brow. He wanted to reach out and smooth that pucker away with his thumb, kiss her flesh smooth again. Hold her and tell her that he could be whatever she wanted him to be.

“I understand why you despise society,” she said after a moment’s pause. “I wanted to tell you that.” She drained the rest of her drink and stood. She didn’t quite meet his gaze.

“You do?” Color him astonished. He truly hadn’t thought she’d ever see it.

She nodded, looking so remote and stiff—not his Rose at all. But she placed her hand on his shoulder as she walked by—a gesture of comfort? “I would avoid it as well if it reviled me as much as it reviles you. Good night, Grey.”

And when she left him sitting there, drunk and about to get drunker, what little self-respect he had left got up and went with her.

Chapter 12

A
rcher arrived early the next morning. Grey was still asleep on the sofa in his study when he heard tapping on the window.

He opened his eyes and immediately regretted it as the sharp light of day pierced his brain. Squinting, he tried to focus on his brother, since he already knew who his visitor was. Only one person ever announced himself so annoyingly.

“Open the bloody window, Grey!”

Grumbling, Grey slowly rose into a full sitting position. His back and neck were stiff and his head felt as though someone had kicked it repeatedly from all sides. And his mouth! Christ, he didn’t want to even think about what might have died inside it.

He staggered to the window, unlatched it, and swung it open. “What the hell do you want?”

Wide-eyed, Archer made a tsking noise. “Is that any way to greet your favorite brother?”

“You’re not my favorite,” Grey growled.

Unaffected, Archer easily adapted. “Is that any way to greet your second-favorite brother?”

Grey grinned, he couldn’t help it. Archer had always had a knack for making him smile, just as he had a knack for pissing him off as well. “I’m hung over and feel like shite. What do you want?”

“You look like shite. What’s this I hear about you making an appearance at Saint’s Row last night?”

“Rose tell you that?”

“She did. I’m surprised you took such a risk just to see her.”

Grey thought of her in that teal gown, the lights illuminating the luster of her skin. “It was worth it.”

“Worth it, eh? So worth it you immediately came home and got sloshed.”

“Something like that. And then Rose came home and I got even more sloshed.”

Archer’s expression turned to concern as he leaned against the window frame. “What happened?”

Grey shrugged. He’d already revealed more than he’d wanted. “Suffice to say she now knows what kind of man I am.”

His brother snorted. “That girl has always known exactly what kind of man you are.”

The words were plain enough, but there was a cryptic edge to them that had Grey puzzled. “What the hell does that mean?”

Arch shook his head. “Come to the stables with me. I want to show you something.”

He looked down at himself. He was wearing the same clothes he’d worn last night and he was wrinkled beyond hope. Not to mention that he smelled like a distillery—an unwashed one at that. And his mask was up in his room. What if someone happened by and saw him…

He wasn’t a coward. He just didn’t wish to be seen looking less than his best.

An oath punctuated the early morning air. Grey was grabbed by the front of the shirt and yanked—hard. His only course of action was to brace one booted foot on the bottom sill to keep from falling.

Of course, that action only succeeded in making it easier for Archer to haul him completely out onto the lawn. He landed hard on both feet, the impact going straight to his ready-to-implode skull.

“What the hell?” Fist cocked, Grey punched his brother in the shoulder. “Jesus, man! What are you about?”

Archer punched him back. It hurt, and oddly enough it seemed to wake him up—clear the fog and some of the pressure surrounding his brain. “I’m trying to help you, you bugger.”

“To do what?” Grey demanded. “Die?”

His brother grabbed his shirt again and began pulling him in the direction of the stables. Grey gave him a shove, breaking his hold, and almost tearing his own shirt in the process. “I can walk without your help, arse.”

And walk he did. He fell into step beside his brother, irritation soon giving way to companionable silence. The morning breeze washed over him, carrying away the cloying odors of sweat and liquor, and refreshing him. It wasn’t as liberating as a hot bath, or a bracing shower, but it would do for now. He could smell the flowers in the garden, beginning to open, hear the bees starting their daily work. Birds chirped happily, and in the distance, he saw a small rabbit hop into the garden hedge.

His father always said that things looked different —better—in the bright light of day, and the old man was right. Grey didn’t feel half so sorry for himself as he had last night after Rose left him. In fact, he felt almost…hopeful. It had felt good talking to her about his past, admitting to being the bastard he had been—and might still be given the opportunity. It had been strangely cathartic.

“I met someone last night,” Archer said as they walked, the dew-kissed grass dampening the leather of their boots.

Grey glanced at him, squinting against the sun’s still uncomfortable brightness. “Who?”

“Lady Monteforte. Do you know her?”

He thought for a moment. “Gorgeous blonde—a little cool-looking?”

“Yes, that sounds right.”

He shrugged, a casual rolling of his shoulders to loosen the knots there. “I knew her a long time ago.”

“You didn’t sleep with her, did you?”

It was the exasperation—the readiness to accept it as fact—that made Grey stop, straighten to his full ducal height and face his younger brother with a scowl. “Contrary to popular belief, I have not screwed every woman over the age of twenty in England.”

Archer raised a brow. “Only most of them.”

Why argue? “Well, your Lady Monteforte was not one of them. She was virtuous and loyal to a fault, and as you know, I stayed away from such women.” It was his one redeeming factor as a rake. He’d flirt, and take what was offered, but he never interfered with true attachment—never. And he tried never to cuckold a man who wasn’t having affairs with other women behind his wife’s back. At least those were two less sins he’d have to answer to someday.

His brother sighed in relief. “Good. I hate when I take a woman to my bed who has already been in yours. I feel like they’re comparing us.”

Grey grinned. “And find you lacking?” As much as he regretted some of his past, he was still a man, with a man’s sexual pride.

If looks could kill, he’d be on the grass gasping his last. “I doubt it.”

Still smiling, Grey turned his pinched gaze toward the stables. Christ, but the sun was bright. “What are you dragging me to the stables for again?”

“You’ll see.”

What Grey ended up seeing, once they entered the blessedly dim interior of the stables, was one of his dogs—Maz the Newfoundland—curled up on a bed of hay in one of the stalls. Curled up against her belly, were four of the most adorable puppies he’d ever seen. Coal black, silky and already big, even though they couldn’t be more than five weeks old.

Grey grinned. He’d have to be a much harder man not to, and he’d always had a soft spot for animals. “I didn’t know.”

“Cute, what?” Archer squatted down beside the mother and stroked her massive head. Tongue lolling, she leaned into his touch.

Squatting beside him, Grey turned his attention to the puppies that were now awake and sniffing him with interest. Their little excited whimpers only served to tug harder on his heartstrings.

It was nice to know he still had heartstrings.

“You know,” Archer remarked a moment later, when Grey was holding one particularly inquisitive pup in his arms. “Lady Rose has never had a puppy.”

“What?” The notion seemed oddly inconceivable. What gently bred young woman of English descent never owned a puppy? Dogs were as much an aristocratic expectation as horses and a lengthy entry in Debrett’s. Her mother had that quiet little terrier that kept to her rooms. He assumed the dog belonged to Rose as well. “Perhaps I should bring her out so she could pick one.”

Archer smiled at him—almost proudly it seemed. “Why don’t you pick one for her?”

Yes, that might go a long way in repairing the rift between them. While it was for the best that she gave up her romantic notions, Grey didn’t want to lose her friendship. His life would be too pathetically empty without Rose in it.

He glanced at his brother. “How did you know?”

Archer hitched one shoulder. “It came up in conversation. I thought about getting her one myself, but then I met Lady Monteforte, and well…I wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about my intentions toward Lady Rose.”

Such as him, Grey realized as their gazes held. He smiled. “Of course not. Thank you for allowing me to take the credit.”

Smiling, Archer cast a glance over the puppies vying for their attention. He already had his hands full trying keep two of them from climbing him. “Will you give her a girl or a boy?”

“Boy,” he replied without hesitation. A massive, loyal Newfoundland male to watch over Rose and protect her when he no longer could.

A strange, mischievous glint appeared in his brother’s eyes. “An excellent choice. I wonder what she will name him?”